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December 18 , 1885 


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MES. DYMOND 


51 Nootl 


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By MISS THACKERAY 

(MRS. ANNE THACKERAY RITCHIE) 


AUTHOR OP “OLD KENSINGTON 


A TILLAGE ON THE CLIFF” ETC 


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CONTENTS. 


BOOK I. 

SUSANNA : AN INTRODUCTION. 

CHAPTER 

I. EMPTY IIOUSES 

II. IN A GIG 

III. COFFEE 

iv. “tell me why Susanna’s fair” 

V. THE ATELIER 

VI. PIANO 

VII. IN THE DAWN 

VIII. AFTERWARDS 

BOOK II. 

SUSANNA AT CROW BECK. 

I. BEACON FIRES 

II. A WEDDING-PART'S 

III. LONDON CITY 

IV. “ A BOAT, A BOAT UNTO THE FERRY ” . . . . 

V. STELLA MEA 

VI. PRINCE HASSAN’S CARPET 

VII. MONSIEUR CARON’S HISTORY OF SOCIALISM . . . 

VIII. SUSANNA AT HOME 

IX. josselin’s STEP-MOTHER 

X. THREE ON A HILL-SIDE 

XI. DAY BY DAY 

XII. A WELCOME 

XIII. ABOUT PHRAISIE 

XIV. UNDER THE CEDAR-TREES . . 

XV. “THE COLONEL GOES HOME ” 

XVI. THE DOCTOR AND THE LADY 


PACE 

5 

12 

22 

30 

36 

43 

53 

56 


63 

68 

72 

79 

84 

91 

97 

103 

111 

116 

121 

127 

132 

136 

143 

148 


IV 


CONTENTS. 


BOOK III. 

AFTERWARDS. 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XVII. AFTERWARDS 155 

XVIII. AT A WINDOW 161 

XIX. INCENSE AND VIOLETS 166 

XX. ST. DAMIAN AND OTHERS 171 

XXI. ALMSGIVING 177 

XXII. ST. CLOUD BEFORE THE STORM 183 

XXIII. A LA PECIIE MIRACULEUSE 186 

XXIV. SUSANNA’S CORRESPONDENCE 190 

XXV. SUSANNA AND HER MOTHER 195 

XXVI. SAYING “GOOD-BYE” 199 

XXVII. WAR AND RUMORS OF WAR 207 

XXVIII. THE BLACK SHADOWS 212 

XXIX. THREE MILES ALONG THE ROAI) . 217 

XXX. ADIEU LES SONGES D’OR 222 

XXXI. ST. CLOUD AFTER THE STORM 229 

XXXII. AT VERSAILLES." 233 

XXXIII. RED COMES INTO FASHION 238 

XXXIV. ONE OLD FRIEND TO ANOTHER 244 

XXXV. PAST THE CHURCH OF ST. ROCII *. ... 248 

XXXVI. FUNERALIA 251 

XXXVII. IN AN EMPTY APARTMENT 256 

XXXVIII. AT THE TERMINUS 259 

XXXIX. CARON 265 

\ 

l’envoi 271 


BOOK I. 

SUSANNA. 

AN INTRODUCTION. 

“Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul 
. Of the wide world dreaming on things to come , 
Can yet the lease of my true love control 







CHAPTER I. 

EMPTY HOUSES. 

“ The lark , that tirra-lii'ra chants, 

With heigh ! with heigh ! the thrush and the jay, 

Are summer songs for me and my aunts, 

While we lie tumbling in the hay. . . . 

“ Jog on, jog on, the footpath way, 

And merrily hent the stile-a : 

A me)~ry heart goes all the day. 

Your sad tires in a mile-ay — Winter’s Tale. 

Before the game of chess begins to be played, the heroes and 
heroines of the coming catastrophe are to be seen in orderly array. 
There is nothing to tell in which direction the fortunes of the board 
will drift. The kings sit enthroned by their spirited partners; the 
little guards of honor are drawn up in serried lines, prepared, if 
necessary, to fall for their colors; the bishops are in their places, 
giving the sanction of the Church to the dignities of State. The 
impetuous knights are reining in those fiery steeds that are present- 
ly to curvet, in wayward leaps, all over the field ; the castles, with 
flying flags, flank the courts at either end. And so in story-telling, 
when the performance begins, the characters are to be seen, quietly 
drawn up in their places, and calmly resting before the battle. 
There are, as we all know, four castles to every game of chess. If 
I look at my checkered plain I see on one side a gray fortress stand- 
ing in its wide domain, guarding the lands that lie between the 
hilly lake country and the Scottish borders. At the other end of 
my story, where the red court is assembled, a shabby little strong- 
hold is standing in a walled garden, not far from Paris. As for the 
other two castles, they are both empty ones. They belong to Colo- 
nel John Dymond of Wimpole Street, and of Crowbeck Place in 
Lancashire. 

What a strange, indefinable feeling there is about empty houses. 
The London house was blind- drawn, dingy, and in order. The 
portrait of the late Mrs. Dymond hung in the drawing-room, with 
the shrouded candelabra; she was painted full length, in blue satin, 
going to a ball. In the back drawing-room — fitted with its many 


6 


MRS. DYMOND. 


couches, faded cabinets, brass rails, screens, Parian statuettes— hung 
the colonel himself, in his uniform. It was a half-finished picture 
in water-color, begun by Mrs. D} r mond many years ago. The draw- 
ing represented a good-looking man with black mustaches which 
have since turned gray. She had left it behind when the family 
went off to the colonel’s country-house one summer, and the poor 
lady never came back to finish that or any of the other things she 
had begun. She had been a feeble, incapable woman, nervous, and 
jealous by nature; and her death was more of a shock than a sor- 
row to her husband. The children cried, and then wiped their 
tears ; the colonel looked very grave, went abroad all dressed in 
black, and sent Jo and Tempy, his son and daughter, to Bolsover 
Hall, their uncle’s house, for a time; and then the town-house and 
the country-house were shut up both together, instead of alternately 
as heretofore. The colonel often went abroad. He found his 
homes very sad. 

But when the country-house was closed, it never seemed quite so 
deserted as Wimpole Street. The echoes were less startled ; the 
doors did not creak so forlornly. Crowbeck Place was not far from 
Mr. Bolsover’s more stately hall, where the young people were stay- 
ing. They often liked to go over and stray about the Place garden, 
and eat the unripe fruit and pick the flowers ; and Mr. Bolsover 
used to fish in the grounds, and Miss Bolsover, the late Mrs. Dy- 
mond’s sister, used occasionally to spend a day opening old cup- 
boards, examining drawers and store-closets, and seeking for mys- 
terious articles, which she wished to put by for her niece, she said. 
She also read any letters that happened to be lying about for the 
colonel. 

Crowbeck Place stood on the slope of a meadow shelving to the 
lake. Jo and his sister liked it ever so much better than the Hall; 
they delighted in the silence, the liberty, the sense of ease that 
seemed to meet them at the very gates of the old Place. At the 
Hall everything was fenced and clipped and boxed Up, including 
Tempy and Jo themselves; whereas here they were free — the land, 
the sky, the sunlight, the water, each element seemed a new happi- 
ness to them. Their Aunt Fanny discarded the elements altogether 
from her system of education: for her, water meant eau de Cologne; 
land was the family estate; air was what came in through the car- 
riage window; and fire, if it shone in the shape of sunlight, was to 
be carefully fenced off with spotted net and parasols. 

Their aunt, Mrs. Bolsover, was the very contrary to her sister-in- 
law, Miss Fanny. She loved exercise, she liked it straight and seri- 
ous, a waterproof and a road by an iron railing suited her temper 


EMPTY HOUSES. 


7 


best ; she was grim, but the young folks had more sympathy for 
her than for Miss Bolsover with all her graces. 

“ I wouldn’t be Aunt Fanny not for a thousand pounds,” says Jo. 

‘ ‘ She spends her life screaming, spying, making mischief, and writ- 
ing poetry, and she would like you and me to. do the same.” 

“How can you exaggerate so!” said Tempy. 

Tempy was very serious, and never laughed. Jo was a lanky 
boy, with red hair and an odd humorous twinkle in his face. Tempy 
was a Dymond, people said, and took after her father’s family. As 
for Jo, nobody could tell exactly what he was; he was not a Bol- 
sover, nor was he like the Dymonds; and he certainly took after 
nothing that anybody held up for his edification. 

Families are odd combinations; they seem to have an existence 
which is quite distinct from that of each individual member of 
which they are composed. We know of enthusiastic families, of 
grasping families, of matter-of-fact families, of others desponding, 
cheerful, noisy, fanciful. There is also a family standard of right 
and wrong, and of discretion and indiscretion, which is quiet, inde- 
pendent of private feeling and conscience. Some families will talk 
where others preserve an absolute silence; some families make jokes 
where others weep. 

The Dymonds were by some people called a cranky family ; they 
went their own way, they were precise and confiding, serious and 
discreet ; the Bolsovers, with whom they had intermarried, were 
people of the world, more easy-going, and more conventional too. 
A Dymond might do wrong, but he would not call it right. A Bol- 
sover, at the worst, made things pleasant with a laugh, and so got 
out of the difficulty. Colonel Dymond’s wife had been a Bolsover, 
Mr. Bolsover’s wife was a Dymond. The unmarried Miss Bolsover 
remained; at one time she was living, not with her own brother, who 
rarely left the Hall, but with lier^ brother-in-law, the colonel, who 
spent eight months of the year in London and four more at the 
Farm, or ‘ ‘ Place, ” as it was called by the country-folks. 

Tarndale Water is not the least beautiful of the Cumberland lakes, 
although it is comparatively little known. The swallows have found 
it out, and dart hither and thither along the banks; tourists come 
there from time to time, not in shoals, but sparingly and by chance ; 
now and then a solitary figure toils round the head of the lake by the 
Hall. A little pathway across the sloping fields leads from the Hall 
to Crowbeck — an old building made green with delicate ivy and 
frothed with the white spray of the convolvulus ; its porch is heavy 
with purple clematis. The brother and sister as they talk are travel- 
ling along the sloping field early one summer morning. Fragrant 


8 


MRS. DYMOND. 


woods and meads and hedges seem trembling with life and song. 
The whole place is athrill : the swifts go darting hither and thither ; 
thrushes and larks are singing their summer jubilee; beetles, gnats, 
midges, are buzzing in the air and droning in chorus ; the fishes are 
darting among the brown shallows. The encircling hills seem near- 
er now than later in the day. Everything is awake and astir and 
alive with that indescribable life of the field and the waters: the 
cows are cropping the long grass down by the water-side; the dew 
is shining on the delicate leaves, one single drop is brimming in 
each emerald trefoil cup ; the white and lilac weeds are sparkling in 
the sunlight; the banks cast long shadows into the water; the queen- 
of-the-meadows is scenting the air with her fragrant white blossom, 
a great honeysuckle head rises above the hedge. Jo and his sister 
go struggling across the long grass, following each other. Jo climbs 
a stile built according to the fashion of the country, where slabs of 
slate are let into the wall. The little calves in the adjoining field 
start off running, with their long tails arched as they fly past. 
Tempy screams like her aunt, and stands, hesitating, on the top of 
the stile. 

“Don’t be afraid, Tempy,” says Jo; “you are much more likely 
to eat the poor little calves than they are to eat you.” 

Encouraged by this assurance, Miss Tempy jumps and goes plod- 
ding after her brother towards the old boat-house, whither they are 
bound. It stands among pines on a narrow tongue of land jutting 
out into the lake. 

“We are late,” says Tempy; “ there will be a scene l” 

“ Let them rave,” says Jo, sententiously. 

“ Jo, I can bear it no longer,” says his sister. “ I have written to 
papa. You may read my letter if you like;” and she pulled a paper 
out of her pocket and put it into his hand. 

“ Bolsover, July 28, 18—. 

“My dear Papa,— I am afraid it will be a disagreeable surprise 
to you to get this letter. It is to implore you to send for us at once. 
I thought you were coming home, and I waited patiently, but now 
that you have put us off again, I can be silent no longer. We do 
so hate being here. Aunt Car would be kind enough if Aunt Fanny 
would let her, but she never lets any one alone. She watches us, 
and suspects us of I don’t know what, and never believes a word 
we say; she burned some verses only yesterday that poor Charlie 
Bolsover had written for me ; she reads all our letters ; she is having 
him sent away again in fresh disgrace because he played cards down 
at the hotel. I would scrub, I would eat dry bread, I would do any - 


EMPTY HOUSES. 


9 


thing to please you, if only you will send for us at once, but I will 
not submit to Aunt Fanny; indeed, this is no childish outburst. I 
cannot bear injustice, no more can Jo, and we long to come to you. 
Please write at once, and we might come by the next train. 

Y our miserable Temp y. ” 

Jo whistled and pulled a long face as he read. “Is not this rath- 
er strong?” said he, doubtfully. He was not without some admira- 
tion for his sister’s style, but he felt that the colonel might justly 
expect some more definite grievances to justify him in sending for 
them. 

“It is only the truth,” says Tempy, “and papa will understand. 
I have a great mind not to go to the Vivians to-day, Jo,” she said, 
gloomily, and walking as fast as ever she could. 

“You can do as you like,” said her brother, stooping to drag up 
the old boat that was disporting itself in the sunshine, tethered by 
its chain. “Halloo! she is full of water. Give me that tin kettle, 
Tempy.” 

A tin kettle was lying in the dew-spangled grass, and Tempy flung 
it to her brother. He began baling the water with great energy; 
the water splashed into the shining lake, the boat rocked, the fishes 
fled in shoals, alarmed by the disturbance. A few minutes more 
the little boat was zigzagging across the lake in very workmanlike 
fashion. Jo was rowing, Tempy sat steering; when the boy looked 
up he could see his sister’s red hair and round pink face against the 
soft landscape. Jo himself, in his ragged straw hat and flannel shirt, 
was not an unpicturesque figure. He was pale and slight, with 
very speaking blue eyes under shaggy eyebrows. He had heavy 
red locks that he sometimes tossed back with an impatient jerk. 
By degrees Tempy forgot her grievances. 

A worse humor than Tempy’s might have been charmed to peace 
by the sweet sights of that early morning ; the heavens and the 
earth were shining and astir, a thousand ripples were flowing in 
from the far end of the lake; the sunny slopes were dotted with 
farm-steads, stretching up, on one side, to where the long moors 
rolled purple with the heather, while on the other, behind the sweet 
pastoral country, lay, like dream-land itself, the long line of the 
mountains, quivering through veils of light, in that region where 
heaven and earth meet, the boundary, not of one horizon alone, but 
of all we hope to see in life. Lovely, indefinite, beyond our reach, 
those distant crests speak of more than all the summer glory round 
about. 

After a time they come to a little landing-place, green and over- 


10 


MRS. DYMOND. 


grown with ivy ; one or two boats are floating there among the 
weeds and clanking their rusty chains; an owl-tower had been con- 
verted into a boat-house, towards which Jo paddles, skilfully steer- 
ing the old punt to the steps. The sound of a distant bell comes 
floating along the water. 

“Late!” says the boy. Then he leaps to shore, leaving his sister 
to follow, and they hurry off as hard as they can go to breakfast. 

They meet a bronzed figure coming along the gravel drive, with 
a post-bag slung to its shoulders, and a battered straw hat. This 
is Mrs. Wilson, the postwoman of the district. 

“ Good-day, Mr. Dymond! good-day, Miss Dymond! there’s a let- 
ter for ye up at t’hall : a f urren stamp letter fra the cornel. ” 

She trudges on, Jo sets off running towards the house, Tempy 
hesitates for a moment, and then calls after Mrs. Wilson: 

“Here is a letter, Mrs. Wilson; will you post it for me?” 

‘ ‘ ’Twoan’t go till the night, miss, ” says the postwoman. 

“Never mind, take it,” cries Tempy, hastily. “To-night will 
do.” The deed is done. 

Aunts, breakfast, letters, Uncle Bolsover, the Times, were all to 
be found in the big dining-room at Bolsover Hall punctually by 
nine o’clock every morning. Jo and Tempy are ingredients less 
accurately to be counted upon. To-day they find Aunt Fanny, as 
usual, reading her own and everybody else’s correspondence. Her 
head is a little on one side, she is softly preoccupied, and her white 
fingers beat a gentle tattoo upon the papers. Aunt Car is pouring 
out strong tea with a serious countenance. Uncle Bolsover seems 
absorbed in the local paper, of which he actively climbs column 
after column every morning; there is a dead silence as the young 
folks come in ; evidently something is amiss. 

Tempy opens her eyes, looks round, says, “ Good -morning,” in 
a loud, inquiring voice. 

“Good-morning, Tempy,” says Aunt Bolsover, dryly. 

“ Good - morning, my dear,” says Aunt Fanny, with a sort of 
“what next?” intonation. 

“Where is my letter, Aunt Fanny?” says Tempy, aggressively. 
“Mrs. Wilson told me there was one from papa.” 

“Here it is,” says Aunt Fanny, daintily turning over the heap 
before her; “ I opened it by mistake;” and she looked full at her 
niece as she spoke. 

“ I wish you wouldn’t open my letters by mistake,” says Tempy, 
throwing the envelope back. “ Since you have read it, Aunt Fan- 
ny, you can answer it, and tell papa w T hy.” 

“ I opened it by accident, Tempy,” says Aunt Fanny, with a mu- 


EMPTY HOUSES. 


11 


sical laugh; “you need not look so tragical. I have not read your 
letter.” 

“Dear, dear,” says Uncle Bolsover, looking very red. “Don’t 
let us waste time over discussion; we ought to be off at ten, and 
you, none of you are dressed.” 

“I suppose you have been to see the Charlieboy off,” says Miss 
Bolsover, still daintily dealing out her papers. Her reticule was a 
sort of lion’s mouth into which they disappeared by degrees — an- 
nouncements, warnings, denunciations ; no one ever measured the 
contents of that velvet maw. 

“Do you mean Charlie? We drove part of the way with him,” 
said Jo. “We didn’t want to miss the lunch, so we came back. 
I say, Tempy, it’s half-past nine. It’s time to get ready. ” 

“ Poor boy,” says Tempy, gloomily, pushing her cup away. “It 
is time for us to amuse ourselves, and for him to go off alone to 
that horrid place. ” 

“Well, well, let us hope Charles will like his tutors when he is 
used to it,” says Uncle Bolsover, the mediator. “I was at a pri- 
vate tutor’s once myself ; sent there in disgrace, too. I assure 
yon I never was happier in my life. We had some capital fun at 
Tickle’s, I remember.” 

“My dear Fred,” said Aunt Fanny, “ we hope for something bet- 
ter than fun for our Charlie.” 

Uncle Bolsover’s remark was deemed inappropriate by Aunt Fan- 
ny, but it comforted Tempy, who got up with a dramatic toss of 
the head and left the room to get ready. 

The more angry Tempy seemed, the more sweet and silvery was 
Miss Bolsover; she undulated up the broad staircase after her niece, 
who bounced up to her own room, banged the door, burst into 
tears, rang violently for her maid, wiped her eyes, and then pro- 
ceeded in hot haste to put on a very smart, tight, braided costume, 
which distracted her by degrees from her troubles. When she ap- 
peared, ready to start, with an ivory parasol in her hand, it would 
have been difficult to recognize the calico nymph of the lake in the 
fashionable young person bustling along the passage on high heels. 
Jo was also completely transformed — not for the better — and Uncle 
Bolsover had assumed knickerbockers for the occasion. The car- 
riage was ready to take them to the station, the train was waiting 
to convey them to the feast; it was a long journey thither, to the 
place where a hospitable old castle opened its ancient halls once a 
year to the neighboring villages. As the train flew along, Tempy’s 
spirits improved, and Aunt Fanny herself became less irritatingly 
amiable. Aunt Bolsover, bolt upright, sat looking through the 


12 


MRS. -DYMOND, 


window. Uncle Bolsover ran his usual comment upon things in 
general, addressing an old gentleman, the only passenger beside 
themselves in the carriage — 

“ Very fine, but very flat all about here, sir— very flat indeed.” 


CHAPTER II. 

IN A GIG. 

“ I saw her , upon nearer view , 

A spirit , yet a woman too, 

Her household motions light and free. 

And steps of virgin liberty, 

A countenance in which did meet 
Sweet records , promises as sweet. ” 

The North of England is essentially a romantic country. To a 
southerner, used to narrow enclosures, to thick -grown hedges, to 
close -packed villages all peaceful and economical of space and 
emotion, there is something very impressive in widespread chases, 
in horizons that heave mile beyond mile, in great moors and fells, 
cloud-swept perpetually. These moors stretch for miles on either 
side of the long lines of railway, hiding away many a secret. There 
is a mystery of sylvan life, a treasure of rushing waters, of deep 
glens and valleys, a whole hidden world concealed below the sur- 
face of these plains that spread flat, unbroken to all appearance as 
far as eye can strain. If you cross them you become intimate with 
their secrets, unsuspected depths of green and rocky terrace open 
at your very feet, you look down into beautiful chasms swept by 
slanting light and shadow ; a tumult of waters echoes from the 
green depths, a sweet overflow of vegetation droops to meet the 
spray, flowers and ferns start from the shining rocks. These wild 
glens and plains, at once tender and austere, all these places, in 
their loneliness and beauty, seem to me to express the very spirit 
of endurance and romance which exists in some people who certain- 
ly would not consciously seek a reflection of themselves in the rocks 
and plains which delight them. 

While Jo and Tempy were scudding along the iron rails, a coun- 
try gig had been driving for miles across great grass fields, where 
young colts were galloping in the sunshine, and inside the gig were 
two people, a little man with a long nose, and a girl in a wdiite dress 
and straw hat, making her happy discoveries — exclaiming delighted, 
beshaken, perched so high up that she could see into the first-floor 


IN A GIG. IB 

windows of tlie little towns as they drove through them, and look 
for miles and miles across the country they had crossed. 

“Shall we* soon be at the station, Cousin John?” said the girl. 
“ I hope granc^papa won’t have to wait. How beautiful everything 
looks. ” 

She leaned back as she spoke, the horse swerved, and a whole 
horizon of clouds, of far-away Cumberland hills, seemed to revolve 
before her eyes. 

“We shall be there in ten minutes,” said Cousin John. “Can 
you make out the sea, Susy? Look, there it is shining in the hol- 
low. Yes, you have seen something of the country at last, and 
you’ll like to be able to say you have lunched at the castle.” 

Susy looked doubtful. 

“Must we go on there?” she said, hesitating, and anything but 
enthusiastic. 

“Dear me! not go?” answered Cousin John, “why, they sent a 
telegram to ask us. I knew Mrs. Vivian would be glad to see any 
friends of mine. Look, Roman remains,” continued the doctor, 
pointing with his whip-handle, and doing the honors. 

Susy looked as she was bid, and while she looked the horse kept 
on its way. It did not take ten minutes to travel past as many 
centuries of time, and to pass from the handiwork of the Roman 
to the great tower of the old abbey church sunning itself in the 
morning light. The delicate high arches were casting their shadows 
on a placid sward of- green, where sheep were browsing. Then 
they came to a bridge which crossed the stream beyond the valley, 
and the doctor’s whip now pointed to a wooden height beyond the 
bridge. 

“The castle is over there,” said lie; “but the road winds round 
by the station.” And then in four minutes more they had reached 
the station, not of Roman legions, but of civilization in its progress. 

A train had just come in, and some people were getting out of 
the carriages on to the platform. 

“ There he is !” said the doctor, with a cheerful wave of the 
hand. “Pretty punctual, eh? Jump down, Susy; don’t be shy; 
walk him up to the castle. They quite expect you. I will join 
you there as soon as I can.” 

Susy gathered her white skirt together and jumped as she was 
told ; for a minute she stood in the middle of the road, then she 
turned, nodded good-bye to Cousin John, and with a bright look ran 
to meet her grandfather, who was standing at the far end of the 
platform. He was a tall, handsome old man, dressed in a clergy- 
man’s black flapping coat ; he stooped a little as he walked. Susy 


14 


MRS. DYMOND. 


was a slight, bright-looking girl, with a dazzling complexion and 
a round, innocent - looking face ; she did not stoop, but walked 
straiglitly and freely, looking like some young nymph from the 
plains below; as she passed, some people standing by made way. 
The old man seemed not a little perturbed as the girl came up and 
kissed him, with a “Here I am, grandpapa!” 

“Are you alone, Susanna? where is Cousin John? what are we 
to do now? where are we to go? which is the way?” said he, nerv- 
ously. 

“Cousin John showed me the way, grandpapa. He is coming 
back for us,” said Susanna, speaking more confidently than she 
felt, and pointing vaguely up a road. “ There are some other peo- 
ple going to the castle; we can follow them, you know.” 

Susy and her grandfather did not hurry to pass the people who 
were walking ahead; they were glad to be preceded by so imposing 
a party whose presence seemed to shield their own insignificance. 
Susy admired the important air of the two splendid ladies in brown 
and crimson, of the fashionable young lady with the pink parasol. 
There were also two gentlemen of the party : one was a short, fat, 
good-natured looking little man, in knickerbockers; the other was a 
pale, very young man, who whirled an umbrella as he walked along. 
Susy might look with vague admiration at the prosperous, present- 
able set of people who seemed so used to the world, to great houses, 
to open-air festivals; she did not know how far more sympathetic 
a sight to world-worn eyes was the fresh young apparition of the 
smiling, wondering girl as she advanced wjth her gentle old pro- 
tector. The two came together, crossing sunshine and shadow ; the 
deer scarcely fled at their approach, the whole summer world was 
alight. There was a stirring of birds in the air, a far-off shout of 
children’s voices, then the sound of the clock came up the avenue 
to meet them, striking clearly. 

“The school- children must be there already, grandpapa,” said 
Susy; “is it one o’clock?” and Mr. Holcombe pulled out his old- 
fashioned silver watch, and said, 

“Yes; I suppose so, my dear; my watch is a little slow; I 
thought it had been earlier. ” 

Everything was so sweet, so silent, so splendid in the sunshine 
that both Susy and her grandfather by degrees forgot their shyness. 
The two lingered for a minute to look through an open door at 
an old-fashioned garden of lilies and yew hedges, to stare back at 
the solemn old chase, beyond which the Cumberland hills were 
floating ; then they reached the moat, flooded with shining green 
leaves, and Susy stopped again, ivy-charmed. Perhaps some spell 


IN A GIG. 


15 


left long years ago by belted Will himself, the once owner of the 
old keep, had reached her. Meanwhile the fashionable figures of 
to-day had disappeared through the gateway, and when the two in- 
experienced visitors came up in turn, the company had vanished 
utterly, no one was to be seen anywhere. They now had come to 
a low archway leading to the castle court. There was a bell swing- 
ing to a long iron chain, which Susy boldly pulled, but no one an- 
swered ; no one was to be seen in the court-yard ; it was all enclosed 
by old walls and latticed windows, and paved with flagstones and 
soft green turf — once Susy caught sight of a rosy little child’s face 
at a lattice, but then it vanished. A scent of jasmine was every- 
where; it seemed as if the very stones gave out a perfume. Some 
great Scotch deer-hounds were lying asleep upon the turf, and came 
slowly trotting up to the strangers to be petted; then they turned 
and lay down to sleep in their sunny corner again. 

“But where are we to go?” said Mr. Holcombe again. 

Susy looked at her grandfather, and seeing his distressed expres- 
sion, began to be a little bit frightened too. 

“Can this be the right castle?” said the girl, half laughing still. 

‘ ‘ I wonder where those people went to ; where can all the school- 
children be? I think this must be the way, grandpapa,” and she 
turned under a second gateway, where a scutcheon of carved stone 
hung among the rose sprays. 

Grandpapa stooped his handsome old head and followed her. 
They passed up a narrow passage, the adventurous Susy pushed a 
swing door, crossed a small antechamber, and suddenly stopped 
short. A su3den blaze and clatter met them — they had come 
wrong, and wandered into the great Gothic kitchen of the old 
castle, reflecting fire and sunshine and brass saucepans, full of peo- 
ple and preparations. Women were busy chopping and thumping, 
men with trays were passing busily across the flagged stones; the 
fires burned as if it were December instead of August ; long pro- 
cessions of eatables stood ready on the dressers, jellies in shining 
armor, creams propped by gabions, fierce stacks of serried pastry, 
cairns of buns. All these preparations did not seem incongruous 
with the solemn old arches overhead, or the great oriel -window 
shining down upon the busy scene. Beautiful things are like beau- 
tiful people, and rarely out of harmony with their surroundings. 
Susy might have been amused if it had not been for her grandfa- 
ther’s nervous look ; she had never before realized his terror of 
strange sights and places ; but if she was dismayed, she did not 
show it, she stood a composed white figure in the midst of the car- 
nival, turning round as if to protect her dear old protector, and at 

* 


16 


MRS. DYMOND. 


this moment a serious-looking man, who might have been the mas- 
ter of the place, so dignified and urbane was he, came forward: 

“Excuse me, you have taken the wrong turning,” he said; “will 
you kindly follow me ?” and he led them across the kitchen, and 
opened a side door, and from thence ushered them into a great 
vaulted hall. It looked as big as the cathedral itself, to Susy, with 
arches and windows, with pictures and armor everywhere, with 
people sitting at distant tables at the farther end, and the sound of 
voices echoing from arch to arch. The trophies of armor were 
stacked at intervals, iron knights stood with steel legs propped on 
to pedestals, wielding battle-axes in their iron hands ; there were 
portraits of warriors who wore frills upon their mail, of statesmen 
in puffed sleeves, of ladies with high heels and coronets. It was a 
very noble gathering all along the wall, a company whose coronets 
on earth had long since, let us hope, been exchanged for coronets 
in heaven. 

Some of the people sitting at table looked up and saw these two 
strangers come in suddenly among them. Susy and her grandfather 
seemed like figures out of some old Scotch ballad, so quaint, so shy, 
so unconsciously dignified were they, with something not of every- 
day life appertaining to them. Their clothes were country clothes, 
their faces looked calm and tranquil as country faces do. They 
advanced, looking neither to the right nor to the left, and sat down 
in the seat the butler pointed out. Susy was an undoubted pres- 
ence; you could not pass her over, although she had scarcely been 
beyond the yew hedges of her grandfather’s rectory until now. 
She had some beauty, though she thought herself so plain, for her 
round face did not please her own taste, nor did her hazel eyes, so 
liquid, so prominent — they could laugh, they could call, they could 
weep on occasion, or they could become stone, and seem asleep for 
days together. 

Susy found herself sitting next to the party of people they had 
followed up from the station. The young lady was at the head of 
the table; the young man, looking very small, was between the two 
grand ladies; and the fat gentleman in the velveteen costume was 
next to Susy herself. He looked very friendly, made way for her, 
turned about to see what there was for them to eat, drink, and be 
merry with. 

“Cold grouse,” said the gentleman. “Excellent salad ; I can 
recommend the cutlets. Tempy, can you hand me that dish of 
mayonnaise? Our hosts are in the tents,” he explained, “but they 
wish us to help ourselves. You went wrong, I'm afraid ; I had half a 
mind to come back and look for you. I sent the butler to find you.” 


IN A GIG. 


17 


“ Thank you,” said Susy, opening her eyes; and Mr. Holcombe 
bent forward, and said, in his pretty, old-fashioned way: 

“It was truly kind of you, sir, to concern yourself on our behalf. 
My granddaughter and I are strangers here, and have indeed no 
real right to be present on this occasion.” 

“ Oh, we have all a right to be here,” said the gentleman, “ since 
our hosts are hospitable people. I don’t know if I can be of any 
use showing you over jthe grounds. I am sure I shall be very glad. 
Here is my niece; she has seen nothing yet;” and he looked at the 
young lady who was munching away with a hearty appetite at the 
head of the table. 

“ Don’t look at me, Uncle Bolsover,” said the niece, in a loud 
voice; “I’m not near ready, yet. I’m perfectly ravenous.” Tempy, 
as she predicted, had recovered her temper, and her appetite too. 
Leaning forward to Susy, she said, “What time did you leave 
home?” 

“Not very early. We are staying at Carlisle,” said Susy, shyly. 
“I drove over with a cousin who brought us here.” 

“ Well, he should have taken better care of you,” said the young 
lady ; * ‘ and now mind you keep by us. ” 

“Hush, my dear Tempy; don’t speak so loud,” whispered one of 
the grand ladies, the grimmest of the two, bending forward, em- 
phatically. 

She was dressed in red and brown and green. She was plain- 
featured and rather alarming, Susy thought. The other lady was 
plump, fair, affected with a curious little tiresome, silvery laugh, 
which went tinkling on perpetually ; she had twinkling diamond 
earrings, a marabout in her bonnet, and a quantity of beautiful old 
lace round her throat and wrists, and an elaborate manner. As for 
the girl, she was pink-cheeked and red-haired, fresh and bouncing; 
she seemed quite used to the world and its ways ; she had a loud 
voice, a military decision and good-natured directness, and gave 
one an impression somehow of being in uniform. The young man 
seemed to be receiving a great deal of advice with a great deal of 
indifference, and with an occasional glance at Miss Tempy, who 
openly shrugged her broad shoulders. Susy sat wondering at ev- 
erything in her demure fashion; everybody seemed to her wonder- 
fully kind, from the butler to the invisible hosts; she was fascinated 
by her new acquaintance, and the fat gentleman’s attentions pleased 
her grandfather too. 

Some days have a way of lighting up beyond all others with a 
peculiar happiness of their own, a bright intensity never to be 
dimmed again so long as life exists ; and this day was one of these. 


18 


MRS. DYMOND. 


Many sad days came for Susy after this happy one, that seemed so 
warm, so long, so full of enjoyment, the present was better than 
anything she had ever dreamed of — and indeed, to the young, both 
joy and sorrow, when they come in their turn, seem greater than 
they could have ever imagined. Susanna Holcombe was eighteen. 
The sun was shining, the feudal castle was rearing its grand old 
walls, the birds were in the air. Everybody else was happy, and 
why should not Susy take the delight of the hour? She had estab- 
lished a tacit understanding with the friendly fat gentleman. The 
young one was so kind as to offer her some mustard ; Miss Tempy 
seemed already a friend for life, so communicative had she become 
over her chicken. A loud shouting in the court outside put an end 
at last to the luncheon : they all got up, and went to the door at 
the far end of the great hall ; it led on to a little terrace, upon 
which they all crowded, for the court-yard below was invaded by 
a chubby pacific mob which must have surprised the knights in 
armor used to such a different tradition. The company from the 
hall was met by a tremendous cheer as it appeared, which the mas- 
ter of the house, who stood laughing at the head of this invading 
force, signed to Mr. Bolsover to acknowledge ; and Mr. Bolsover, 
quite in his element, immediately made a low bow, and began a 
speech which was more or less appropriate and inaudible. 

I am not going to describe at length the programme of the day’s 
festival ; for Susy the story might have been told, not in tents, and 
buns, and games in the ring, but from more delightful and less 
tangible aspects. 

Dr. John was delighted when he arrived to find his proteges in 
such good company. Mr. Vivian himself was showing Mr. Hol- 
combe the old moated garden; and Susy, arm-in-arm with her new 
friend, met him with a beaming smile. 

“Dear me, Susy, has Miss Dymond taken you under her wing?” 
said Dr. John. “ I was unavoidably delayed at the inn by an ac- 
cident. I am glad to find you have been so well looked after. 
How do you do, Mrs. Bolsover? How do you do, Miss Bolso- 
ver?” 

The grand ladies acknowledged the little doctor’s salutation with 
their finger-tips, and meanwhile Miss Tempy dragged Susy away, 
and went on cross - questioning her all the way across the lawn, 
along the terrace, all down the steps. 

“Don’t you think Tempy an odd name? I am sure you never 
heard anybody else called Tempy. It was poor mamma’s name, 
you know ; she was Temperance, and they christened me Tempy. 
Those are my two aunts, Aunt Car and Aunt Fanny — they 


IN A GIG. 


19 


brought us up that sort of thing; dragged us along by main force, 
my brother says. Have you got a brother?” 

" I have two little half-brothers,” said Susy, “ but I see them very 
rarely. My mother has married again. I live with my grandfather. ” 
Oh,” said the other," we don’t like second marriages. I should 
never allow it, nor my aunts either. Papa always consults me — at 
least he generally does,” says Tempy; "but I have had a great 
deal to try me lately. I can’t tell you about it. Never, never 
allude to the subject, to me or to anybody else. How old are you?” 

"I am long past nineteen,” said Susanna, apologizingly. "I 
know I look much younger.” 

"And I’m not yet sixteen, ” said Miss Tempy, with a sudden ex- 
plosion of laughter; "who would ever imagine you so many years 
older than me? But you don’t know me yet. Miss Martin often 
says there is a great deal more in one than people have any idea 
of at first. I suppose you think me plain, don’t you?” says Miss 
Tempy, blinking her blue eyes. " It is a pity, isn’t it? — one doesn’t 
do one’s self justice, though, of course, looks don’t matter.” 

" I don’t think you plain at all,” said Susy, laughing; " looks do 
matter a little, I suppose, but a great many ugly people have been 
very happy, and good. ” 

"Well, papa likes my looks, ’’said Miss Tempy, only half satis- 
fied, "and of course I care more for his opinion than for anybody 
else’s.” As they talked they were walking along a beautiful fern- 
grown pathway that led towards the gorge, where the waters were 
tumbling over the stones. To Susy every commonplace word was 
idealized by the rushing of the -waters in the gully below, by the 
stately "vanguard of pines” that ruled the summit of the hill. 
Some of the children had straggled up into this beautiful wild 
grove, and were gathering the bluebells that grew among the ferns. 
The light was turning yellow, and the shadows were beginning to 
grow long. 

Before parting, busy’s new friend, in return for so much confi- 
dence, had made her describe her home, old Betty the cook, the 
tranquil rectory by the church-yard, the old yew-tree by the church 
door. 

" And what is your mother like?” says Tempy. 

"My mother,” said Susy, and her whole face brightened, " she is 
very beautiful, and very, very dear and gentle. She has brown eyes 
and a lovely face. I’m like my father, people say. Nobody ever 
could be like mamma again.” 

But here Cousin John came running after them, calling out that 
it was time to go. 


20 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“Take your grandfather back to the train, or we shall have him 
climbing the Maypole, or running in a hurdle race. Was not I 
right to make him come?” 

Susy thought she had never seen her grandfather look so well 
and animated. He had charmed the whole party by his gentle, 
old-fashioned grace; he laughed, his cheeks were flushed, his eyes 
looked bright. He looked ten — twenty years younger than when 
he arrived. 

“It has been a happy day, a very happy day, my dear,” he said, 
as they were both going back together by themselves. The Bol- 
sovers were in another carriage, and Susy and her grandfather were 
alone. 

“Mr. Vivian knew your father, my dear; he had a brother in the 
same regiment. He was kind enough to ask us to return on some 
future occasion; if we revisit our good cousin, I certainly hope to 
see those kind people again.” 

All the way back Mr. Holcombe sat up, talking very brightly. 
Susy was even surprised at her grandfather’s audacity in venturing 
to laugh when she talked of her new friends. “ They amused me, 
my dear,” said the old gentleman; “the ladies were not without 
pretension, but I am glad you got on with them.” 

They found the doctor’s wife and her little girls, looking out for 
their return. The curtains were drawm, the supper was laid, the 
little parlor looked home-like and comfortable; a fire was burning 
in the hearth, and it was reflected in the round glass that hung on 
the opposite wall. 

“I thought you might be cold after your journey,” said the doc- 
tor’s wife, in her usual querulous tone. “What an expedition you 
have had ! Will John be back to-night ?” 

“ He won’t be long, Cousin Ellen,” said Susy. “ It has all been 
perfectly delightful, and grandpapa is not a bit tired.” As she 
spoke her grandfather sank down wearily into a seat. 

“A long day, my dear Ellen, but a very pleasant one,” said 
grandpapa. He sat with his arms resting on the arms of the chair. 
He had lost his bright look, and was paler than usual. 

“ Well, you must rest to-morrow, before your journey,” said the 
doctor’s wife. “I’m sure I can’t think why you don’t stay longer, 
Cousin Edward. ” 

“ I’ll take a good rest to-morrow,” said Cousin Edward. “ It is 
very good of you and John not to be weary of such a cranky old 
fellow as I am; but I want to get home, Ellen.” 

Ellen, who was a good soul at heart, though a grumbling friend, 
now began ringing the bell and preparing Mr. Holcombe’s supper, 


IN A GIG. 


21 


telling him that he must not think of waiting for her husband. 
“Don’t you marry a doctor, whoever you take, Susy: morning, 
noon, and night there is never an hour one can count upon them. 
Well, who was there, and what was it all like?” 

While Susy chattered on of castles, drawbridges, knights in 
armor, the old man drank his hot soup, broke a bit of bread, and 
tasted a little wine. Then Mr. Holcombe got up, saying he was 
tired and should go to rest. “ Good night,” he said, and he kissed 
Susy very tenderly. Afterwards she remembered that he raised his 
hands and put them on her head, as if in benediction. 

“Your grandfather’s tired to-night; but he is a young-looking 
man for his time of life, ’’said Cousin Ellen, as he left the room. 
“ We are a young-looking family, Susy — what age should you give 
me?” The doctor’s wife did not wait for an answer, to Susy’s 
great relief, but wandered on. “Lou and Bessie don’t look their 
age, either,” she said. “Poor girls, they are disappointed to think 
you won’t stay a little longer now you are here ; why, you have 
seen nothing yet. ” 

And this was true enough ; except for that day’s expedition, Susy’s 
impressions de voyage had been confined to the smoky cathedral 
tower, the statue in the market-place, and the hucksters crying their 
wares all round about it, to the doctor’s laborious home, where the 
wheels of life turned, but certainly were not oiled. 

“I don’t take to strangers,” said the mother of Lou and Bessie; 
“but I don’t look upon you two as strangers, though you have only 
been here a week. Do you know your mother stayed with us over 
a fortnight once. It was before that foolish marriage of hers. No, 
my dear, you needn’t look so black. We none of us ever liked him, 
and she was a foolish woman.” 

“Mr. Marney makes my mother very happy,” said Susy, blush- 
ing, and drawing herself up. 

It was a relief to her that the doctor came in just then, brisk, shiv- 
ering, in good spirits, hungry, and talkative, and changed the thread 
of his wife’s comments. 

“ Where’s your grandfather — gone to bed? Well, children, well, 
Ellen, here I am. Susy will have told you all about it. We have 
had a lovely day, and I wish you had come with us.” 

“You really seem to think, John,” said the doctor’s wife, “ that I 
have nothing to do but to drive about in a gig and praise the weath- 
er. I should say it had been a very usual sort of day;” then she 
stopped. “Was that your grandfather’s bell, Susy? I wonder if he 
has all he wants;” and Susy jumped up. 

“ What can he want?” said the girl, running out of the room. 


22 


MRS. DYMOND. 


.The doctor helped himself to a glass of claret. His wife got up 
and went to make up the fire; and then in another minute they 
heard the bell ringing and ringing again, and Susy’s voice overhead 
calling passionately, “Cousin John! Cousin John!” 

Cousin John turned pale, some instinct told him what had hap- 
pened. 

Something that all his good-will and long experience could not 
help, nor Susy’s piteous, terrified prayers and tender tears. She sat 
on the bedside, with her sweet face bent to her grandfather’s pale 
lips, holding him up with all her anxious strength; but the dear old 
man lay at rest, and they could not disturb him any more to life. 

Very late at night the doctor’s wife came, and put her arms round 
the girl and led her away. “John is writing to your friends,” Cous- 
in Ellen said; “would you like any one "to come to you?” 

“Oh, mamma; I want mamma,” said Susy, bursting into tears; 
and she asked for a pencil and paper, and wrote a few words: “ Dar- 
ling mamma, they are so kind, but please come, please come to your 
Susy.” 

And the doctor enclosed the note in his own more formal letter. 


CHAPTER III. 

COFFEE. 

“ Oh! Friend, 1 Jcnoio not which way I must look 
For comfort, being as I am oppressed .” — W. Wordsworth. 

Shall we follow the letter? A villa once stood on one of those 
long roads that lead from the Arc de Triomphe, at Paris, to its de- 
pendent villages. These long, dull roads are planted with poplars 
and lime-trees, and seem to become straighter and more dreary with 
every succeeding revolution. The villa itself was in a garden green 
and roughly tended, that put out its straggling shoots, and blazed 
with marigold heads. The four walls were white and green, and 
sweet with vines within, sun-baked without, and stained w 7 ith the 
dust that skirted the highway. The gates opened upon the boule- 
vard; they were painted green, faded and blistered by the sun; the 
whitewashed wall was decorated with a half-defaced inscription, 
in straggling black letters : “ Villa du Fare. Appartement meuble. 
Parlez au Concierge, S.V.P.” 

The house had been named after its original proprietor, whose 
widow made a living by letting her two pavilions to persons in want 
of ‘ * salubrious and furnished apartments, ornamented with beautiful 


COFFEE. 


23 

mirrors , in the vicinity of Paris .” So ran the advertisement. “ I am 
of Scotch origin myself, and I have an English connection,” little 
Madame Du Parc used to say. “ The Miss O’Sheas have been with 
me these five summers; Madame Muldoon and her niece come to 
me every winter season: they have now sent me lafamille Marney, 
who inhabit the North Pavilion. The South Pavilion is very well 
let to a patient attending Doctor Pujat’s water-cure. There is no 
house more sought after than mine,” says Madame Du Parc, looking 
round with pride at the signs of habitation. “There is no room 
empty, but my son’s, in all the house.” 

The house stood in a pleasant place, overrun, as most French gar- 
dens are, with straggling beds of nasturtiums. There were pansies, 
very purple and splendid, and snapdragons . and lupins and white 
and lilac flocsies, sedulously flowering in odd corners; the paths 
w T ere roughly laid with stony gravel, and sprinkled with fallen leaves; 
iron chairs were standing here and there under the trees. There 
was a plaster statue in one corner, and an iron table. The air came 
fresh from the hois and the open spaces at the back, and of evenings 
and mornings the garden seemed full of voices and the scent of 
flowers, while the echoes of the rumbling and itinerant life in the 
highway outside would be sometimes enlivened by the music of sol- 
diers marching past. One evening a little company of people sat 
drinking coffee in the garden of the villa, looking like any one of 
those groups which you may see assembled behind the railings 
which divide French interiors from the outer world. It was after 
dinner-time, and the coffee-cups were set out on the little iron table 
by the plaster Mercury. Two boys were rolling on the grass, at 
play; a little girl was stooping to caress a dog; an elderly gentle- 
man, with a gray mustache, sat at the table, occasionally talking to 
two ladies with work-baskets; while another man, younger and 
more portly, stood with his back against a tree, discoursing in a 
monotonous voice. Some faint clouds were slowly trailing their 
lonely rose-colored vapors across a serenely burning sky. There 
seemed to be perfect peace in the silence overhead — a peace some- 
times dreamed of by tired people resting for a wdiile before becom- 
ing again tired. 

The orator under the tree went prosing on. He discoursed, warm- 
ing to his subject, at great length and with some monotony. The 
old lady at the iron table had been briskly exclaiming for the last 
ten minutes, and trying to interrupt the orator, pishing, pshawing, 
waving her arms; she had sparkling black eyes, and a shrill voice 
which was to be heard all over the house. Having said her say to 
the ladies, she now swiftly turned upon the gentlemen. 


24 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“Don’t listen to him, colonel,” cries the old lady to the good- 
looking elderly gentleman who had been submitting, with a some- 
what dissentient expression, to the harangue. ‘ ‘ Mr. Marney, he 
write for journals, and his business it twist everything round de haut 
en has, or he have nothing to write about. My son write for jour- 
nals sometimes, but he never show me his articles. He is too much 
ashamed of himself and those friends — liberators and agitators. 
They are a good-for-nothing set, who won’t work, and like talk and 
to talk. I tell Denise to shut the door on their noses — ” 

“You must not confound every man who loves his country in 
the same category with your son’s friends, madame,”said the ora- 
tor, concealing his annoyance at the old lady’s interruption. He 
spoke with a slight Irish accent. “Here in your fair France ques- 
tions are complicated. I allow that it is scarcely possible to fore- 
tell from one day to another what the consequence may be of giv- 
ing supreme authority to any one party. But w r ith us in Ireland it 
is not so. It is not a case of brother’s hand red with a brother’s 
blood, but of a country groaning under the rule of the Egyptian,” 
says the gentleman, talking louder and louder, for he saw the old 
lady preparing to interrupt again. “Yes, colonel, the sorrows of 
my most unhappy country,” and his voice toned to a different note, 
“are the sorrows of a whole nation crying aloud for a tardy justice. 
These I feel from my very inmost soul: my heart bleeds when I 
hear those in authority speaking lightly of wrongs such as ours, and 
I do not exonerate you, Colonel Dymond, honorable gentleman as 
you are, from the charge.” 

“ Venez, Fox,” said the little girl, who had not been listening; 
and as she moved away the little dog set off scampering after her, 
and the boys, with a shout, ran after the dog. 

“Your country! my country! Patriots, patriotism, I don’t care 
one sou for your patriots,” cried the old lady, shrilly. “ Le pays des 
lwnnetes gens, that is my country.” 

“ Do not let us wander from the point, my good lady,” said the 
orator, impatiently waving his hand; “personalities have nothing 
to do with a great idea. When the wrongs of a generous race rise 
before our legislators in their seats in Parliament, crying aloud for 
justice, it is the duty of every man to give them a hearing. You, 
colonel, are not one to turn aside from the cry of the helpless.” 

Mr. Marney paused for an answer; the colonel started, some- 
what confused. He had been disturbed by the barking dog and 
the boys’ stampede, and he had lost the thread of Mr. Marney’s re- 
marks. 

“Oh! ah — certainly not; but I didn’t get into Parliament, you 


COFFEE. 


25 

know. It cost me a great deal of money,” said the colonel, recov- 
ering himself; “I have not paid it all off yet.” 

“Michael takes it all to heart, as very few people do,” said Mrs. 
Marney, proudly, looking up from her crimson bale of wool. “If 
everybody did as he wishes, things would be very different.” 

“ Mrs. Marney thinks that, as the wife of a political writer, she has 
a right to her say,” said the orator, good-naturedly, and loftily ac- 
cepting the tribute. ‘ ‘ I won’t engage to maintain all your opinions, 
my dear ; but as to making a pudding or darning a stocking, I don’t 
think there’s many could give sounder advice.” He said it in a 
jaunty, affable way. Mrs. Marney’s dark eyes brightened with 
pleasure ; the colonel made a courteous little bow. 

It was at this moment that the children came scampering up with 
the evening post, the faithful little dog barking at their heels as 
usual. 

“Here’s a letter for you, mamma,” said one little boy; “what a 
funny black letter!” 

“And here’s a letter for you, papa,” said little Dermot, the 
youngest. 

“I’ve two, I’ve two pretty letters,” said the little girl, in French, 
dancing after them ; and she gave them both to the old lady, who 
pulled out her glasses to read the addresses. 

“ Why, you silly little child, that is for Monsieur le Colonel. Ah, 
here is Max’s writing, this is for me. What a shocking hand he 
writes, pattes de mouche /” 

“Please remember the postman,” said little Dermot, holding out 
his cap. 

“Be off !” said his father, crossly; and he flung him a penny out 
of his pocket as he spoke. 

“Little boys shouldn’t ask for money,” said Madame Du Parc, 
looking up befoxe beginning to read. 

As for Mrs. Marney, she had torn her letter open, and was so ut- 
terly absorbed in it that she did not heed anything that was going 
on round, about her. Another time she might have anxiously fol- 
lowed her husband when he suddenly walked away, crumpling up 
his correspondence and thrusting it into his coat-pocket, but she did 
not heed him, nor Madame Du Parc’s vehement exclamations. “As 
usual!” said the old lady, “Max, he put me off. There is his room 
ready, water in the jug, clean sheets on his bed, Denise ’ave been all 
the morning clearing out the potatoes. We take all this trouble, 
and now he write that he will not come till next week. I shall turn 
him out when he come. Oh, it is too abominable ! Come, Marie, 
come with marraine; let us go and tell Denise that she need not give 


26 


MRS. DYMOND. 


herself any more trouble;” and the old lady took the little girl’s 
hand and hobbled off, talking through the darkling garden, and dis- 
appeared. Her voice died away scolding in the distance. 

Mrs. Marney sat on, with her head resting on her hand and the 
tears in her great eyes. The colonel had pulled out his glasses, and 
was also too much absorbed in his correspondence to think of any- 
thing else. It was a disastrous post. Mr. Marney’s tailor’s bill w r as 
the least unwelcome letter of the four. The pencil lines written by 
poor Susy in her sorrow had reached her mother; Tempy’s indig- 
nant protest was in her father’s hands. 

The poor colonel read it, reread it ; he could not solve the riddle, 
nor make up his mind what was to be done. “ Tut, tut, tut !” he 
said, beating his foot in perplexity. He had himself a great admi- 
ration for Fanny Bolsover; she had ruled his wife and she now ruled 
him; it was unlucky that she’had not got on better with the young 
folks. Tempy, he feared, was vehement, and yet he could not quite 
disregard all she said. He folded the letter with great exactitude, 
and put it carefully away in his pocket ; then he took it out again 
and unfolded it once more. The evening was closing in, and he 
could not see Mrs. Marney’s troubled face, nor the tears which drop- 
ped quickly on the paper that was lying in her lap: tears do not 
show in the dark as they do in the sunshine, and men do not guess 
as women do at the things which are not put into words. The un- 
lucky colonel in his perplexity suddenly determined to appeal to 
Mrs. Marney for advice — she was a kind woman, she had children 
of her own. She would understand a girl’s feelings where he was 
at fault. It was an inopportune moment that he chose, poor man, 
to open his heart to his new-made friend. He began, deliberately at 
first, and speaking, I fear, to very inattentive ears — “Mrs. Marney, 
may I have a few minutes’ conversation with you? I ought not, I 
know, to trouble you with my affairs, but perhaps you, who are 
kindness itself, will excuse. ... I have, alas ! no right to ask any one 
to advise me now,” he continued, in a plaintive voice. (He forgot 
that the late Mrs. Dymond had been the last person he ever applied 
to in a difficulty.) “You,” he went on, “ are a mother, a good, de- 
voted mother — ” Then he stopped short, quite frightened by the 
sudden outburst he had unwittingly called forth ; he looked up, and 
the words failed him, and he saw for the first time that she was in 
distress. 

“ Oh, do not speak to me like that! No, no, not that, not that!” 
she said, with a sudden irrepressible flood of tears. ‘ ‘ Oh, do not 
say such things to me! See, Colonel Dymond, my child wants me, 
and I cannot go to her; she is in trouble, and I can do nothing to 


COFFEE. 


27 


help her;” and the poor overwrought woman hid her face in her 
two hands that were trembling. 

The colonel was startled ; he was a kind - hearted man, he was 
quite taken aback by such trouble. 

“ Oh, it is a cruel thing to part from one’s children,” she went on, 
choking her grief and recovering herself little by little. ‘ ‘ Every- 
thing comes in to divide one in after-days. . . . How can I go to my 
poor darling? Where is the money to take me? How can I leave 
my home? Oh, colonel, I sent her to her father’s people, thinking I 
had done for the best ; but it is never the same, never the same. ” And 
she looked up piteously, with dark eyes shining through her tears.. 

The colonel sat listening and very confused, and yet not unsym- 
pathizing in his confusion; he began gently patting the iron table 
by way of soothing the poor lady; two trains of thought were going 
on together in his head, an unusual thing for the simple-minded man. 
In all his sympathy for her he was still pondering over his own per- 
plexities. Yes, she was right about the children. She had helped 
him unconsciously to make up his mind, and he now began to won- 
der if he could do anything to help her. . . . He wanted to see her 
face smiling and unruffled as usual, not all changed, stained, suffused 
as now. He felt very shy for a colonel, but he presently began — 
“Will you excuse me, Mrs. Marney, if I speak plainly to you? I 
can, unfortunately, do very little for anybody. I seem to be always 
going to others for assistance, and you have helped me more than 
you have any idea of ; but there is one way, at least, in which per- 
haps you would let me simplify your difficulties, and if— if a small 
advance, say fifteen or twenty pounds, would be convenient for your 
journey, would you give me the pleasure of feeling that for once 1 
have been of some little use to a friend?” He laid his hand on hers 
as he spoke, and she, with a sudden grateful impulse, caught it and 
raised it to her lips. 

“ Oh, how good you are!” said she. 

“ Don’t, don’t, my dear lady!” said the colonel. “ I have a daugh- 
ter myself. . . . Here is Mr. Marney coming. I will go for the notes 
at once,” he added, “and I beg you will not say another word; 
indeed the obligation is mine.” He hurried past Mr. Marney, with a 
friendly sign, as he walked towards the house. Mrs. Marney’s grate- 
ful eyes seemed to look into his , her grateful voice to be in his ears. 

When the colonel returned, with the notes in an envelope, he found 
Mr. and Mrs. Marney still standing together where he had left them ; 
they were waiting for him, and talking eagerly. lie had hoped that 
she might have kept the transaction to herself, but she had evidently 
been telling her husband. 


28 


MRS. DYMOND. 


The colonel was shy, and held back for a moment, but Marney 
certainly, perhaps from habit, was equal to the occasion, and made 
things easy for all parties. 

“Colonel,” he said, with emotion, flinging back his coat, “I am 
a man of few words, but as long as I live I shall never forget your 
goodness to my poor wife and her girl. Thanks to you, we shall both 
be able to hurry over to our poor child in her trouble. You have 
done a noble action, sir, and one that you will like to remember when 
you are yourself upon your — a — looking back at your past life.” 

Whatever his future reflections might be, the poor colonel seemed 
very uncomfortable at the present moment; when Marney held out 
his hand, he did not immediately put the money into it, but merely 
shook the outstretched palm. Then going up to Mrs. Marney, he 
said, “ Good-night, and thank you,” in a low voice; and raising in 
turn her hand to his lips, he respectfully kissed it, leaving the paper 
in her fingers. She did not speak — she looked at him with a cu- 
rious, puzzled, grateful expression in her beautiful eyes, and he 
walked quickly away. 

“There goes a good, honest, well -conditioned old gentleman,” 
said Marney, approvingly. “ How much is there, Mary, and where 
are you going to put the money?” 

“I shall take care of it, you may be sure,” said Mary, smiling, and 
slipping the envelope into her pocket. 

“You had better let me keep the notes for you,” said Marney 
(and he spoke in perfect good faith); “ perhaps there may be more 
than we shall want for the journey. How much did he promise 
you, Polly?” She hesitated still. 

“I think he said ten or f— fifteen,” she answered, looking at him 
in doubt. “ Why do you want the money now, dear?” 

Marney turned, with a sullen stare. “Make haste,” said he. 
“ Don’t keep me waiting.” 

“ Let us go to the light, dear, and count them,” she said, tremulous- 
ly, still feeling in her pocket. 

When they got into the room, Mrs. Marney, with a pale face, gave 
the envelope to her husband, who exclaimed, cheerfully, “ The old 
fellow is better than his word — there are four hundred-franc notes, 
Polly— £16— hurrah for the colonel!” 

And then, when she was alone once more, poor Mary, still with a 
pale face and feeling as if she were a thief in the night, pulled out 
one last hundred-franc note, which she had kept back from her hus- 
band, and she looked at it, and hid it away carefully between the 
leaves of her Bible. Later in the evening she went up-stairs to the 
bare room where her two boys lay sleeping, and sat down by the big 


COFFEE. 


29 


bed, looking wistfully at the little, round, brown, chubby heads. 
They were like their father, and yet they reminded her somehow of 
her own people too. Little Michael turned and opened his brown 
eyes wide, smiled at her, and then dropped to sleep once more; little 
Dermot lay sunk warm in the pillow. Oh, might they grow up good 
men, upright, truth-fearing men, not as she was, not as their father 
was— her husband, whom she loved with all her heart’s passionate 
devotion, but whose faults were clear to her aching eyes. She 
prayed for commonplace things for her children; not for heroic 
achievements, but for daily virtues, hard work, truth, uprightness. 
“Mamma, mamma,” Said little Michael, struggling to break through 
the spell of sleep that divided him from her. 

“My darling, my darling,” answered the poor mother, softly, so 
as not to arouse him ; and she bent over him, and once more her tears 
flowed, but they were gentle and more happy. 

Then she went down-stairs to make her arrangements with ma- 
dame, and the two stood talking on the landing and recapitulating 
all the details of the daily history— the soup for the little boys, the 
directions for the washer- woman, the girl who was to come in dur- 
ing Mrs. Marney’s absence. Mrs. Marney fetched her hundred-franc 
note ; it was to pay for these necessary expenses, and also for a cer- 
tain proportion of rent that was owing. The moon rose, and the 
two dark figures prosed on and on in the moonlight. 

“Well, I would not cross the sea, not even for my good-for- 
nothing Max,” said madame, “ but you are right to go; and do not 
be uneasy about your children. Has Monsieur Marney gone to the 
station to make arrangements? I will not wait up any longer; at my 
age one is weary when the night comes.” 

“ I wonder he is not back,” said Mrs. Marney. 

“It is a long way to the station,” said madame. “Good-night, 
and good-bye.” 

Mrs. Marney said only “Good-night,” and she went and stood 
at the window, watching. The moon was streaming, and the dark 
clouds were drifting and hurrying along the sky; the clock struck 
eleven. She went and fetched a shawl, and wrapped it close round 
her, and sat down at the window again. After a time she fell asleep, 
and woke up as the clock struck one, and hour after hour passed 
and struck as she waited. 

And then in the early morning Marney had come home, declaring 
he had been robbed ; he had been cheated, he said ; and then sud- 
denly he became piteous, contrite, abject in his entreaties for forgive- 
ness. On his way to the station he had turned into a cafe, and there 
met a patriotic acquaintance who, alas, persuaded him to look in for 


30 


MRS. DYMOND. 


an hour at a place not far off, where, unluckily for Marney* one of 
those fatal green plains was spread where dice are sown and bitter 
crops are reaped. He was tempted, and, as usual, instantly suc- 
cumbed. When he came away in the early dawn one five-franc 
piece was all that remained of the colonel’s advance. 

And then, as usual, Mary, after being angry, forgave him, making 
some absurd excuses to herself; and having forgiven him, the next 
thing was that she tried to console her heart-broken husband as he 
lay with his head comfortably buried in the sofa-cushions. Poor 
thing, what a life would hers have been had she not been able to 
forgive! He was ruined, he said. It had been of vital importance 
to him to get to London ; he deserved it all, he sobbed. As he be- 
came more desperate she was more pitiful. Would he go even now? 
Would he fetch Susy away and bring her back? There were fifty 
francs still left, which she had kept back for the children’s expenses. 
Madame had the money, but she would get it back, and so Marney 
allowed himself to be consoled and sent off on his way. 


CHAPTER IY. 

“TELL ME WHY SUSANNA’S FAIR.” 

“ Making a poet out of a man , 

The true gods sigh for the cost and pain.” 

E. B. Browning. 

The colonel, meanwhile, had passed a good night; he woke up 
thinking with pleasure of the chance by which he had been able to 
come to the help of this worthy couple. Marney made too much of 
a very simple action, but, after all, gratitude was a rare, commodity. 
The colonel had written a letter to his children, in which he had 
tried by dignity of language to conceal what some people might 
deem weak compliance. It is often difficult to tell wjiy one does 
one thing more than another, or to realize what slight impulses drive 
the whole fabric of existence in one or another direction. A chance 
question or association, one person or another coming into the room, 
trifles scarcely to be weighed in the balance of daily life, seem to 
lead to such unexpected conclusions. It was the tone of Mrs. Mar- 
ney’s voice more than anything she had said which had brought 
conviction to the colonel. He went back to his comfortable room, 
sat down in his arm-chair, reread his letters with great deliberation, 
and all the time he seemed to hear her plaintive voice, “ Others may 
do their best, but it isn’t the same.” The colonel was a serious man, 


“TELL ME WHY SUSANNA’S FAIR.” 


31 


who always took things seriously; he paused for a minute, and then 
he began to write. 

“My dear Tempt, — I was painfully surprised by the contents 
of your letter of the 24th, which I have received only this evening. 
You write, my dear girl, as if you were not aware that my chief ob- 
ject in life must be to promote my children’s welfare as far as in my 
power lies. My health required change, and I hoped it might have 
been a pleasant arrangement for all parties, for you and your brother 
as well as for your aunts, if I asked Bolsover to receive you both 
during my absence. That this arrangement should have resulted in 
dissatisfaction on your part greatly disappoints me. Your aunts 
are not aware of your painful feelings, and write of you both with 
the warmest affection. They are very superior women; your poor 
mother had the highest opinion of them and of your uncle Bolsover. 
I should be indeed grieved if any estrangement arose in youi minds 
towards such near relations. After some deliberation I have come 
to the conclusion that it will be best, under the circumstances, that 
you should not wait for my return, which may be delayed, and that 
you and your brother should join me here. A better acquaintance 
with French will be of use to Jo when he goes to the University. 
I am writing to your aunt Caroline by this post, to tell her of my 
change of plans, and giving no special reason beyond my protracted 
stay at Paris. My present landlady, Madame Du Parc, has not room 
to take you in, but a suitable apartment will easily be found. I 
need not add that I should not require you either to scrub or to live 
upon dry bread, though I have less pleasure in welcoming you, my 
dear child, than I might have had if you had earned this ‘ treat,’ as 
I think I may call it, by cheerful acquiescence in my wishes. Nev- 
ertheless, it will be a real pleasure to me to have you with me again, 
and I trust that no more occasion for complaint will arise— either 
on your part or that of 

“ Your affectionate father, 

“John Dymond. 

“P.S.— I am sorry for poor Charles’s troubles. A young man 
cannot be too careful in the choice of his associates. I have no 
doubt that it is a wise plan to remove him at once from evil influ- 
ences. Let us hope his muse will not permanently suffer from the 
loss of the verses.” 

The colonel was pleased with his composition, and had taken it 
to the post, and was coming back in a cheerful, well-satisfied frame 
of mind, when, to his surprise, he met Mrs. Marney, whom he imag- 

3 


32 


MRS. DYMOND. 


ined far away on her way to Paris, quietly walking under her big 
sunshade up the village street, with her little boys on either side of 
her. She was dressed in black ; she was carrying a letter ; she 
looked very pale, but she suddenly flushed crimson when she saw 
him, and stopped short, waiting for him to come up to her. 

“Not gone!” said the colonel. “I thought you were off this 
morning early.” 

“No, Marney is gone,” she said, faltering, and very much agitated. 
“He could not — we could not. ... Oh, Colonel Dymond! how can 
I explain? There was so much to be done — more than I can tell 
you— more than I knew of yesterday. I gave up my share. It has 
been a cruel disappointment,” and her eyes filled up. “He is gone — 
alone; he will bring her back to me.” Then she said, “ Don’t think 
me ungrateful ; please say this much, though I feel as if we had ill 
requited your goodness;” and she stood confused, and with her beau- 
tiful eyes cast down, she did not seem able to face the colonel’s gaze. 

Colonel Dymond was easily led, but he was also a strict-minded 
man, and he answered dryly, for he was disappointed, 

“lam sorry you were not able to carry out the purpose for which 
I advanced that small sum, Mrs. Marney; it was intended for your 
convenience. You owe me no account;” and then, without another 
word, he walked stiffly away along the hot sunshiny road, while 
poor Mrs. Marney, still holding the boys in each hand, passed on, 
chilled and with a heavy heart. 

Poor soul ! for her was the shame, for her the bitter disappoint- 
ment and the brunt of opinion. It seemed to her like some dream 
of something that had happened before. 

Mary, during all those hours, saw that the colonel avoided her 
more and more. When she met him in the garden he wished her a 
cold good-morning and went on his way, instead of establishing 
himself by her side as he had done hitherto. The poor soul felt as 
guilty as if she herself had been to blame, as if it was her fault that 
her husband had failed her. She had, little by little, grown to con- 
fide in her new friend, and she missed him sorely. When she met 
his averted looks it gave her a pain in her heart ; she felt as if Mick 
was more to blame in some way because the colonel was angry ; and 
once, seeing him turn up a side path to avoid her, she sent the little 
boys running after him to beg him to wait. He waited, and allowed 
her to come up to him. He could not help admiring her, even then, 
vexed as he was; she looked so beautiful, so beseeching, as she ad- 
vanced along the straggling little walk. 

“ I can’t bear it any longer, colonel,” she said, half laughing, but 
bitterly in earnest. “You have been such a true, kind friend that 


“TELL ME WHY SUSANNA’S FAIR.” 


33 


your displeasure is a load on my heart; that is all I want to say. 
Believe me, I would have given twenty pounds twenty times over, 
had it been mine, that this should not have occurred.” 

He was somewhat mollified, but he did not quite relent. “You 
owe me no account,” he repeated. 

It was all she could get from him; and yet she was glad she had 
tried to set matters right, when next day he came once more and 
walked by her side for a few minutes, talking more like himself. 
Mary, too, was more like herself. 

“I have heard from them,” said Mrs. Marney, with a happy face. 
“They will be here this morning. Madame, I am expecting my 
daughter.” 

“So much the better,” says madame, dryly. “I hope she will 
not behave in the way everybody else does, and change her mind 
at the last.” 

Madame, too, had frozen ever since that unlucky night when Mrs. 
Marney had taken back her fifty francs and given up her journey so 
mysteriously. 

But an hour or two later, when the travellers arrived, Mrs. Mar- 
ney’s delight and happiness were irresistible. This was no culprit 
asking forgiveness, but a proud and happy woman claiming their 
sympathy. Mrs. Marney met them at the gate where the railway 
omnibus stopped in the sunshine, and then the mother and daughter 
were tight clasped in each other’s arms. 

Madame was at her window; Colonel Dymond was smoking under 
the acacia-tree as the Marneys passed by. He thought he had rare- 
ly seen a prettier sight than the little procession. The mother and 
daughter were walking arm-in-arm, looking so entirely united and 
one that he wondered that they could ever have been apart. He 
thought the girl looked perfectly charming; she had a certain prim, 
delicate grace in place of her mother’s somewhat easy-going manner. 
She was sad, and her black dress told its story ; she was dusty and 
tired, after her night’s journey; but all this could not alter her sweet 
triumph of girlhood; her complexion was dazzling, her bright eyes 
were alight. 

She was looking up with that perfect trust and reliance which a 
child feels for its parent, and the mother was gazing into her sweet 
face with the proud confidence a mother feels in her child. I do 
not know that these two loved each other more than most mothers 
and daughters, but their often partings and long separations made 
their feelings more evident when they met at last. 

“Here she is, Colonel Dymond,” said Mrs. Marney, stopping short 
when she saw him. “ Susy knows all your kindness to me.” 


34 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“I am very proud to be so introduced, ” said the colonel, with a 
smile and a bow. 

And so Susanna had got her wish, and was at home, and Mary 
Marney could watch her with loving eyes as the girl came and went 
about the place. It filled the elder woman with strange pride and 
delight to see how pretty her child was grown, how charming she 
was in all her ways. Sometimes, when Mary smiled at her and Susy 
smiled back, the two faces looking at each other might have been the 
same face softened and reflected in the waters of a pool. A sudden 
brightness would come into the girl’s eyes as she met her mother’s 
look, and she nodded with a pretty little spontaneous gesture. She 
was a little sallow and sleepy when she was not speaking ; but then 
again, when the people she cared for came to her and the things she 
liked, her face would light up, and her eyebrows would arch into 
new expression. She seemed a different person, touched to a differ- 
ent life. The mother was the handsomer of the two, but she had 
not the sweet expressions and tones of the young girl. 

This was the conclusion Colonel Dymond came to next day 
when he met them all in the garden as usual. After a very few 
minutes’ talk — so it seemed to him — Miss Susy started up and 
announced that she was going down to the village with Mikey and 
Dermot. 

“Are you going down to the village again, Susy?” said the elder 
lady. “You must be tired; you have been about all day, and all 
yesterday you were travelling.” 

“I’m not a bit tired, mamma,” said the girl. “I wish you would 
come with us.” 

“I can’t come. I — I have some letters to write,” said Mrs. Mar- 
ney, who had as yet tried to conceal from her daughter some of 4 the 
makeshifts of the establishment. 

“ You have always got letters, mamma, ’’said Susy, smiling; “who 
do you write to?” 

The mother sighed, and then smiled ; she was, in truth, an im- 
patient woman drilled to patience by long habit. The daughter 
had lived peacefully hitherto among peaceful people in a distant 
place; her gifts, such as they were, had come to her from nature, 
not from that cruel second nature which is the experience of life. 

“Well, then, I’m tired,” said Mrs. Marney, laughing. “I won- 
der you are not, Susy.” 

“Ah, she don’t want to sit and rest,” said Madame Du Parc, who 
had come out for ten minutes’ chat with her lodgers. “My dear 
madame, she won’t demand stools or arm-chairs for thirty years to 
come. They are for decrepit old patraques like myself.” 


“tell me why Susanna’s fair.” 35 

“You, inadame? What do you call me, then?” said Mrs. Mar- 
ney, smiling and looking very handsome. 

“ I must beg that you, Polly, will keep about long enough to see 
to your duties,” said Marney, by way of a joke, “ or I shall have to 
look out for your successor, my dear.” 

Susanna’s cheeks were burning, her soft hazel eyes were looking 
indignation. To hear her beloved, beautiful mamma, the goddess 
of her girlish imagination, so spoken to, filled her with a strange 
intolerant anger. She had scarcely known her step-father until 
now, and the more she knew him the more she shrank from him 
and his ways and his speeches. Her mother had always come 
alone to Crossham, where Susy’s early years had been passed with 
the kind old grandfather who was gone now; sometimes Mr.. Mar- 
ney had appeared for an hour to fetch his wife. Mr. Holcombe’s 
old-fashioned dignity and distance had overawed him on these oc- 
casions. Susanna had been sorry for him. He had seemed stiff 
and shy, but more to his step-daughter’s fastidious taste than now 
when lie was “ at home,* as people say, and all restraint was gone. 
Susanna had been brought up in a somewhat rigid school. She 
could have grown accustomed in time to his smoke, his free and 
easy ways; but what she could not get used to was the tone which 
he used to her mother — her sweet, beautiful mother, for whose pres- 
ence she had longed ever since she was a little child first parted 
from her side. Mary Marney had always seemed like some angel 
to her young daughter. Susanna had inherited from Mary herself 
a turn for hero-worship, a certain faith in those she loved which 
idealized them and made them more than mortal. Now she was 
living in a daily bewilderment. It was but a few hours since she 
had first come, and already a hundred doubts were in her mind. 
She was not disappointed in her mother, but she could not under- 
stand her; she loved her more than she had ever done, but she was 
not satisfied, and she seemed to know her less. 

“Is mamma happy?” she asked herself; “can she be happy? 
Ah ! now that I am come to her, my love must make her happy.” 
This, at least, might be granted. 

It seemed so little to ask for, but that little was not in her life’s 
conditions; other and greater blessings might be Susanna’s, but not 
this one. 

She wanted all her mother’s heart, and there between them stood 
Marney, with his odious, blinking, handsome face, his free and easy 
ways ; there scrambled the little boys with their wild heels and 
clamor, there came the daily cares, the hours crowded with sordid, 
laborious tasks. Was this the life her mother had been leading all 


36 


MRS. DYMOND. 


these years — the life that absorbed her so utterly? Poverty was 
nothing: Susy had been used to simple ways in her grandfather’s 
house ; but these shifts, these insincerities, these unpaid-for luxu- 
ries, the duns, the bills, the expedients which had never been dreamed 
of until now, all these things were now to be a part of Susy’s daily 
experience. All this was in her mind as she turned away from the 
group under the acacia-tree. There they sat ; there was the sky 
again all peaceful, as if no ache existed beneath its couleur de rose. 


CHAPTER V. 

THE ATELIER. 

“ I had a little chamber in the house , 

As green as any privet hedge a bird 
Might choose to build in, tho ’ the nest itself 
Could show but dead brown sticks and straws .” 

Aurora Leigh. 

Susy’s room was over the sitting - room, and looked towards the 
garden. It was a narrow little, whitewashed slip. The bed was 
hung with yellow curtains, that were fastened to a gilt crown sus- 
pended from the ceiling; there was a marble wash-stand, with a 
looking-glass, with one Cyclops eye reflecting the light ; there was 
a wooden chest of drawers, and a trunk containing her modest 
possessions, and a peg or two, from which hung Susy’s cloak and 
her black bonnet with its long veil. As the breeze came blowing 
through the open window the veil gently floated. There was also 
an arm-chair, with four straight legs and a huge yellow paunch; 
a little pair of red slippers stood against the bed. The walls were 
quite bare, except for a little pencil-drawing of the- dear old rectory. 
The room itself opened upon a wide landing, which was used for 
many purposes: as a store for washing- lines, for potato-sacks, piles 
of firewood; and besides all this it contained various ladders and 
trap doors and long poles. Susy, who had got up early one morn- 
ing soon after her arrival, was startled by a faint scream, and open- 
ing her door, found an unexpected pair of neat black legs suspended 
mid-air from a ladder which had been let down from the ceiling. 

“ ’Elp! ’elp! ” says madame’s voice, somewhat muffled, from above. 
“Denise, venez! I am lost; I cannot get down. Ah! who is it— is 
it you, Miss Susy? Come up, careful, and guide my feet. Ah! that 
is right. Thank you, ” says madame, once landed from the ladder, 
panting and shaking herself. “ That good-for-nothing Max, it is all 


THE ATELIER. 


37 


’im. He will not ’ave the apples in his atelier — such fancies! I 
went up to see if there was room in the grenier, and I lost my poor 
old head.” 

“ Had you been there long?” said Susy. 

“An age,” said madame, mysteriously. “I have scream for an 
age. You ’ave save my life.” 

Madame must have had good nerves, for she soon recovered her 
breath and her composure, and she invited Susy to accompany her 
on her explorations. Madame led the way down-stairs, the neatest 
imaginable little Rembrandt-like figure in her white cap and black 
skirts. “Was it not a well-built, handsome house?” she said. “Her 
poor ’usban’ had planned it all.” It was hers now; it would all be- 
long to Max some day, he was her only son. 

“ Is he a painter?” said Susy. 

“No; he is a graver on steel. This is where he work,” said ma- 
dame, as she opened the great door of the atelier with pride, and led 
the way into a huge room with a big window, built out into the gar- 
den. It was more like a barn than anything else. It was furnish- 
ed in the simplest, roughest way ; but there was something which 
gave a touch of life and of romance to it all — to the odds and ends, 
the plaster casts, the photographs upon the walls, to the old orange 
curtain swinging across the window; it was the something which 
belongs to all that concerns those mystical worlds of art, those 
dreams eternal of life which passes away. 

Madame, who had some perception under her frill nightcap, se- 
cretly wished for Max to make a drawing of the young Life now 
walking into his great shabby atelier. The slanting stream of morn- 
ing came dazzling from the high window into the girl’s face, and, as 
she moved aside, she found madame’s blinking eyes approvingly 
fixed upon her. 

“Ah! you should know my son,” said madame, who did not beat 
about the bush; “he w T ant to marry; he is a good boy, very ’and- 
some; not like me. He take after his poor fazzer.” 

“ And is your son engaged to be married?” Susy asked. 

“No,” says madame; “I have not yet found the lady. He say 
to me, ‘ Mamma, find me a wife if you will, but she must ’ave a dot. 
I ’ave seen you and my poor papa in such torment and difficulty for 
money that I will not marry without a dot. I should wish my wife 
to ’ave a carriage, if possible. This house is so far from the barriere /’ 
It is reasonable, is it not, and well said?” 

‘ ‘ Very reasonable, indeed,” said Susy, laughing. She did not take 
interest enough in M. Max to be shocked by madame’s very matter- 
of-fact explanations. 


38 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“Max he works a Veau forte , ” continued madame, beginning to 
dust and straighten. “He have worked for all the best houses; he 
have made pictures for Mr. Charles Blanc. Look, that is his table;” 
and she pointed to a business-like looking table in a window shaded 
by a slanting frame, through which the light came softened by sil- 
ver paper. All the many murderous appliances of the peaceful art 
— daggers, stilettos, sharpened blades and piercing points — were 
heaped in the tray; the dabbers lay together; the oil-pots and acids 
stood in a row along a shelf against the wall. A sort of iron oven 
had been erected near the fireplace, to which madame proudly point- 
ed. “Those are the hot plates; you could not touch them when 
the gas is turned on. The extravagant! He buy that pretty piano 
only last year. He is never here to touch upon it. Do you like 
music? You can come when you like to play.” 

Susy’s eyes brightened at this permission. 

“You need not be afraid to come — Max ’ave not been near the 
place for two month. That is his portrait — wicked, good-for-noth- 
ing;” and she pointed to a charcoal head curling from the wall 
where it had been fastened by a single nail. It represented a long- 
nosed, frizzle-headed person with a sort of grin. “It is like,” said 
madame. “Ah! you will see he is a ’and some fellow. There are 
his portfolios. Look what he can do ;” and while madame ferreted 
about with dusters and spectacles, Susy opened the big portfolio on 
the chair, and began turning over picture after picture, not a little 
puzzled by some, delighted by others. She had absolutely no expe- 
rience or knowledge of art, but some natural taste. As she stood 
there, some one came in at the door; it was not the owner of the 
studio, only the lodger — the colonel — coming back from his water- 
cure, who now stood looking in, attracted, as most idle people are, 
by an open door-way. 

“Come in, come in, Monsieur le Colonel,” says madame, hospita- 
bly. “Come and see my son’s work. You are rich; you should 
buy some of his pictures to hang on the walls of your chateaux. 
Show M. le Colonel what you have in that portfolio, my dear child;” 
and Susy, instinctively turning accomplice, pulled at the yellow cur- 
tain to keep out the dazzling sun, and then began holding up one 
engraving after another. 

The colonel stood by, gravely looking through his glasses. There 
were pictures of every sort — portraits, fancy pieces, Holy Families, 
original sketches, and copies from the old masters. 

“ This is a very pretty picture,” said Susy, holding up a land- 
scape, delicately etched with sunlight and shade, and water reflect- 
ing, and April clouds drifting across the sky. 


THE ATELIER. 


39 


“That is not unlike Tarndale, where I live; where my children 
are at present, ’’said the colonel, wondering what Susy would say; 
“ it is certainly an admirable engraving.” 

“ Your children?” said Susy, pausing; “ have you — ” 

He interrupted. her. “My children would not seem children to 
you, Miss Holcombe; my son is seventeen, my daughter is sixteen.” 

“ And her name is Tempy, is it not?” cried Susanna, clasping her 
hands, with a look very bright and then very sad. “ Oh, I am so 
glad. I hoped so it might be you when mamma told me your 
name.” And then she told him of her meeting at the castle — of 
her acquaintance with Tempy — of that happy day, so short a time 
ago, so long ago. Susy was thankful to speak to any one who 
seemed interested, not pained, by what she had to remember. Her 
mother used always to shrink from it all. To Mrs. Marney the 
dear old grandfather had only seemed a judge. She had never un- 
derstood him. It was a delight and an ease of mind to Susy to 
talk of him, of his goodness, to so kind and sympathizing a listener 
as the colonel ; and then Tempy, too, seemed a fresh bond between 
them. Were they coming to Paris? How delighted Susy was ! 
If Susy was pleased, her new friend was not less pleased. The girl 
interested him more and more. What a friend for Tempy ! How 
glad he should be to bring them together! 

“Well, what are you about? you are not looking at the pict- 
ures !” cried madame ; and Susy, recalled to her duty, held up a 
new print. 

“Here is a very pretty one,” said she. “I think this must be 
Ruth and Naomi.” 

“Yes, my dear child, ’’said the old lady, coming up and giving 
her an approving pat. “Ah! that is the daughter-in-law I should 
wish to have. Just see how well it is done; look at the veil, colo- 
nel, and the necklace. And the expression! Oh, what expression!” 

“But Ruth had no dot, madame, ’’said Susy a little maliciously, 
with one of her pretty bright looks. 

“Ding, dong, ding, dong, Soooosy ; ding, dong, Sooosy,” comes 
from the garden outside. One little brother is rattling a stick in a 
flower-pot, the other is pretending to be a bell. “ Venez dejeuner , 
Soooos!” cry the children in the jumble of French and English ha- 
bitually used by those young Anglo-Parisians. They come thump- 
ing along the passage to the doors of the studio, peep in, and run 
away, and Susy turns at the summons. 

“Do not forget to come and play the piano,” said madame, call- 
ing after her. “You shall give my little goddaughter, Marie Pi- 
chot, some music-lessons, if you like. She is coming to stay here.” 


40 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“ I should be very glad,” said Susy, simply; and, as she spoke, an 
idea came into the worthy colonel’s head. 

The little boys trotted along the passage, followed by their sister. 
The summons to breakfast was an improvisation on their part. 
The meal was still frizzling and boiling in the pans and pots 
through which breakfast is transmogrified on its way to the table. 
The children burst open a door with an accustomed air; Susy fol- 
lowed, and found herself, not in the dining-room, but in a sunny 
little kitchen full of fumes and sunshine, where her mother stood 
bending over the stove. It was a contrast to her last invasion. 
Mrs. Marney looked up confused, somewhat displeased, and blush- 
ing crimson, with a spoon in her hand and her dress pinned back. 

“Oh! mamma,” cried Susy, “why don’t you make me do this?” 
and she sprung forward. “ Are these your letters that you write 
before breakfast?” 

“I— I thought you would be vexed, dear, if I told you it was I 
who did the cooking, not Denise, ” said Mrs. Marney, humbly. “I 
know all this is not what you have been accustomed to at home.” 

“ Don’t,” cried Susanna, flinging her arms round her mother’s 
neck. “I have not been accustomed to a mamma.” 

Meanwhile Mick and Dermot, who seemed bent upon revealing 
tlie-family secrets, went on their way through a second door, which 
led across a passage to the little anteroom where the family met at 
meals. Through this open door came a sudden burst of anger and 
impatience. “Go away, you urchins. Where the devil is your 
mother?” cries a voice. “ Tell her — ” 

“Yes, dear, yes, ’’Mrs. Marney calls out, hastily interrupting, and 
turning back to her eggs again. “ Go, Susy dear, and talk to him.” 

Susy, blushing, and with some repugnance, crossed the passage 
and said “ Good-morning ” to her step-father, who was sitting with a 
pile of papers at a table where some cups were set upon the oil-cloth. 
He didn’t look up, and seemed little inclined for her company, and 
she went into the sitting-room to wait for her mother’s coming. 
The garden outside looked pleasant and green; the room itself was 
a scene of confusion. The round table was covered with pens, 
papers, and ink ; a black bottle and a dirty glass stood in the centre 
by the lamp, that cloud by day, that pillar of light by night, under 
which Marney wrote his articles and Mrs. Marney patched the fam- 
ily patches. 

Opened and unopened, a heap of newspapers were fluilg on a 
chair by the table; a pair of slippers that Marney had thrown off 
were lying as they had fallen. There was a sofa with yellow cush- 
ions tumbling tipsily about, and a great yellow arm-chair piled with 


THE ATELIER. 


41 


children’s garments; the doors of the cupboard were swinging open. 
It was adingjr, untidy-looking room, and Denise had certainly done 
little but undo the shutters that morning. Susy, with housewifely 
instincts, looked round and began folding and straightening some of 
the disorder into order; she picked up the torn papers from the 
floor and threw them into the waste-basket. One scrap was written 
twice, on two different sheets, in Marney’s tidy handwriting. Susy 
could not help seeing it, and wondering what it meant. “ It is with 
the greatest pain and reluctance that I have written so plainly. 
Your kind and generous heart will — ” Susy blushed, read no more, 
and threw the paper away with the rest ; then she turned to the 
newspapers — she had laid hands upon one or two of them, and be- 
gan to pile them tidily when an exclamation from one of the little 
boys who had come into the room stopped her. 

“Mustn’t touch,” said the little boy, whipping his top. “Father 
will beat you if you touch.” 

“I don’t think he will beat me, Dermy,” said Susy, laughing; 
“but I will leave the papers alone if he does not like them to be 
touched.” 

“He always scolds when mamma touches,” said Dermot. “ Dis 
done, ma scaur continued the little boy, “ did the colonel give you 
any pictures?” and the child came up and slipped his hand into 
Susy’s. The little bright face looked up quite artlessly. Susy was 
puzzled. 

‘ ‘ He gave me no pictures, dear, ” she said, stroking his head. 

“Why didn’t you ask for some?” said the other little fellow. 
“We always ask.” Again Susy’s heart began to sink -with vague 
apprehension. She already felt that there must be much in her new 
life from which she must turn away, much that she must be content 
to ignore. A time came before very long when the poor girl could 
no longer pretend not to see what was passing before her eyes. 

Susy used to meet the colonel constantly after that morning, as 
people do meet who are living in little suburban boarding-houses. 
One day he stopped, and looked greatly embarrassed, and finally 
asked her whether it was true that she had consented to give little 
Marie Pichot lessons in music. 

“ Yes,” said Susy; “lam very proud of earning a little money.” 

“It has occurred to me that perhaps you would allow your friend 
Tempy to profit by your delightful acquirement,” said the colonel. 
“The music-mistress we have been counting upon has just failed 
us. If you would agree to my daughter’s terms, it will be a great 
kindness on your part.” 

“But I couldn’t teach well enough,” said Susy, blushing, and 


42 


MRS. DYMOND. 


opening lier round eyes; “ and I’m sure if I could I wouldn’t like to 
—to—” 

“I know I have offended you,” said the colonel, looking so crest- 
fallen that, rather than give him pain, Susy doubtfully agreed. 

“ It is absurd,” said she, looking up, “ but I know what you have 
done for mamma. Will you let me try to pay part of her debt to 
you?” 

“We will talk of that presently,” said the colonel, brightening 
again. “ I will come and speak to your mother if she is at home 
this afternoon.” 

A little later in the day the colonel came as he had promised. 
Marney was out ; Mrs. Marney and her daughter were sitting to- 
gether in the window of the sitting-room. “ Come in, colonel,” said 
Mrs. Marney, in her friendly, welcoming way. “What is this my 
Susy tells me?” The colonel had soon talked Mrs. Marney over; 
she was willing enough that Susy should be paid, and indeed her 
admiration for Susy’s music was unbounded. ‘ ‘ I can’t think where 
the child gets it all; I never could play a note,” Mrs. Marney de- 
clared. This matter being settled, the colonel presently found him- 
self, with a poetry-book in his hand, reading to the two as they sat 
at their darns. He had not done anything so sweet and to his taste 
for a very long time ; as he read he looked up, and saw Susy’s eyes 
fixed upon him; she had let her work fall into her lap for a moment 
as she listened. The hoofs of Marmion’s charger were ringing on 
the drawbridge of Tantallon Castle. She seemed carried away far 
from the little villa, from the green garden, the homely daily toil ; 
the Great Wizard had laid his spell upon her. As for the reader, dry 
old colonel as he was, the girl’s bright look touched him ; he went 
back to his rooms feeling as if they were strangely dull and desert- 
ed. And still more so was the grand apartment he had taken for 
his son and daughter, to which he reluctantly moved next day. All 
the life and interest in the place seemed to him centred in that bare 
little parlor, where the two women were sitting at work hour after 
hour, while the little boys played in the garden outside. Tempy 
was a very dear girl, and Fanny was a very superior woman ; but 
they did not seem to make things look so peacefully homelike as 
these two. Tempy would have opened her eyes if she could have 
read her father’s thought. What, that a home — that little shabby, 
untidy parlor, scattered over with scraps? Impossible! 


PIANO. 


43 


CHAPTER VI. 

PIANO. 

“ The pedal is a good servant hut a had master .” 

Musical Biuthday Book. 

The sound of a piano came through a window that opened on to 
a stone balcony. The hesitating notes echoed along a street or av- 
enue which had been lately built, not far from the Arc de Triomphe 
at Paris. The music struck the stone and reverberated into the dry 
blazing sunshine, and then seemed absorbed in the dust and the aca- 
cia-trees that were planted at intervals along the road, and which 
cast their dumpy shadows on the ground. Everything was so hot 
and so glaring that very few people were about; a few par-baked 
figures went quickly by; the shutters of the houses were closed; 
the people were hiding inside from the fierce rays. There is a si- 
lence about the mid-day sunshine which must have struck us all at 
times, when the houses are shut up, as if in protest ; when the shad- 
ows scarcely shade, and the sun burns in fierce intenseness, then it 
is that the distant piano is heard echoing, whose notes we can all 
remember in so many places in the hottest hour of the day. A close 
carriage rolled by, a cat darted across the pavement and ran up a 
white wall, and then after an interval a drifting figure in black came 
along the pavement. It stopped at the door of the house from 
whence the piano had been sounding. The figure was only Susy, 
who put up a shabby black glove and rang a great bell; and when 
the door opened stepped from the glare outside into the cool vesti- 
bule, with its stone staircase and glazed arches. Colonel Dymond’s 
scheme had actually come to pass. Tempy and Jo were established 
at Paris, and the music-lessons and the meetings he had hoped for 
were realities, serious realities to Susy, who conscientiously spared 
nothing to fulfil her bargain, and came wearily through the blazing 
streets day by day, trying to stimulate her pupil into some genuine 
effort and interest. Tempy looked upon it all as very great fun; she 
thought it must be of great advantage to Susy, with her shabby 
gloves, to have her for a pupil. She was as enthusiastic as ever 
about her, and ready to patronize her to any extent, all the more so 
that Aunt Fanny, who was forever surveying the world from her 


44 


MRS. DYMOND. 


own particular pedestal, had for some weeks past been made uneasy 
by Miss Holcombe’s visits to Tempy. She remembered Susy quite 
well, Susy and her pretty looks and her sudden blushes, and it didn’t 
seem to Miss Bolsover that this young lady was at all the sort of 
person who should be constantly an inmate of her brother-in-law’s 
house. Aunt Fanny’s tacit objections had, if anything, given extra 
interest to the music-lessons for Tempy. One letter a^ter another 
had been coming, deprecating, hinting, suggesting a whole series of 
music-masters; there was Pocoforte so well spoken of, Herr Thum- 
penau so highly recommended. 

On this particular morning Miss Dymond, crossing the hall, had 
found the usual Aunt-Fanniad lying on the table. This one was 
more emphatic, if possible, than any which had gone before. Tem- 
py opened her eyes as she read it; it was difficult to forget it entire- 
ly. She could not but feel of some extra consequence with such a 
letter in her pocket. “You are old enough to know something of 
life,” wrote Aunt Fanny, “and I need not say that this is for you 
alone. Do not encourage that girl too much. You must be wise 
for others. Jo is young, and even your father is of an impulsive 
nature, and might not be able to see as a woman does by some in- 
stinct what secret motives a girl may conceal beneath an apparently 
artless manner.” 

When the servant announced “ La maitresse de piano pour ma- 
demoiselle,” Tempy jumped up from her stool and came forward 
even more eagerly than usual. “ How could you come through this 
furnace?” she said. “How brave of you! How glad I am to see 
you!” 

Miss Tempy was not a little transformed from the wild nymph 
of Tarndale waters, and even the fashionable young lady at the 
castle might seem outdone by" the present frizzed, flounced Pari- 
sian belle. Tempy was not unconscious of her elegant appearance; 
and she occasionally put on a curious starched and mincing manner 
to match her toilet. Jo used to laugh; but her father was rather 
dazzled by it, and thought that she now reminded him of her poor 
mother. But if Tempy was improved, Susy was very much altered 
by her few weeks’ experience of the changes and chances of life. 
Her innocent beaming look was perturbed, and the clear waters of 
her eyes were troubled. Her clothes looked shabby and dusty in 
the hot white glare, and among the gilded splendors of the colonel’s 
drawing-room, the smart arm-chairs and satin sofas that were sprawl- 
ing about the room. Great flower-jars stood filled with handsome 
exotics, and candelabra on the chimneys. The curtains were silk, 
covered with Chinese bridges; the tables were rampant with golden 


PIANO. 


45 


legs. Tempy, radiant in the centre of this shrine, sat, with the ped- 
al down, banging at the piano. 

The boy looked up from his book and nodded, without changing 
his attitude, as Susy came in. 

“How tired you look!” says the hostess, helping the black figure 
off with its black hat and dusty shawl. 

“Tempy, do ring for some seltzer-water,” says the boy on the 
sofa, without looking up; “one never gets anything in this house 
without making a fuss.” 

Our friend Tempy gave a tug to the great bell-rope, and the selt- 
zer came just as Miss Holcombe, turning pale, had sank wearily into 
a seat by the piano. 

“There, take that,” says Jo, getting up lazily, filling a glass and 
giving it to the music-mistress; “one orders things for one’s self, 
and somebody else always wants them.” 

Susy was not offended; she laughed and drank, and as she drank 
the color came back. Presently the lesson begins. Miss Holcombe 
can hardly aspire to the title of music-mistress, but she is thorough- 
ly in earnest and doing her very best; Miss Dymond is not in the 
least in earnest. Conversational, digressive, she attends on and off, 
makes the same mistakes over and over again, presently begins a 
discussion about the pedal. ‘ ‘ The passage should be played lightly, 
not with too much expression,” says Susy, and she bends forward, 
serious and stern, and plays the passage with a very precise and 
delicate touch. 

“I don’t agree with you,” says Tempy, quite unconvinced. “I 
like the pedal myself, and I like people to play as if they felt the 
music all over, not as if they were only listening to it.” 

“But putting the pedal down does not always mean that one feels- 
more intensely,” said Susanna; “it means that one says more about 
one’s feelings.” 

“I like talking about my feelings,” said Tempy; “if I feel a 
thing why should not I say it? I like to look at you; I think you 
perfectly lovely, and I like to tell you so.” 

“There goes Tempy ’s pedal,” said the boy, looking up from his 
book. 

“ Papa said so, too,” cries Tempy. 

“It always sickens me to hear second-hand conversations about 
myself,” repeated Jo, turning over a page. 

“ Who ever would repeat conversations about you!” cries Tempy, 
with a sisterly shriek of laughter. 

“G sharp, G G G please,” says Miss Holcombe, blushing, and 
striking the note, and once more the two start off on their pilgrimage 


46 


MRS. DYMOND. 


along the weary pages of the music-book, among the shoals and the 
pitfalls, the occasional flats and sharps, from level to level, over a 
mountain pass, and so at last into a wide and lovely plain, easy, 
smiling, and beautiful. 

And then the drawing-room door opens, and the colonel comes in. 
Tempy looks round, and leaves off playing altogether. “Well, 
papa,” says she, cheerfully, “what have you been about?” Jo gets 
up, somewhat disconcerted, from his sofa, pulls down a blind, pulls 
it up again, and goes out of the room. The music-mistress glances 
at the clock; the colonel sits down stiffly on a chair in the middle 
of the room. He looks somewhat out of place, though it is his own 
hired golden chair and his own hired house. He is not an uncom- 
mon type of colonel, well brushed and baked, with a brown face 
and a white mustache, and an expression of great seriousness. His 
manner took people in who did not know him well ; even Susy felt 
a little in awe of him here especially — more so than in the apart- 
ment at home; she blushed up nervously to-day when the colonel 
turned to his daughter, and said, 

“Tempy, if you will put your bonnet on, I will take you for a 
drive. I have a few words to say to Miss Holcombe first.” 

“Have you, papa?” says Tempy, looking surprised; then she re- 
membered that the lessons had not yet been paid for, and added, 
“ Oh, to be sure,” and left the room, banging the door and singing 
at the pitch of her voice. 

‘ ‘ I wanted to ask you a question, ” said the colonel, looking very 
much embarrassed. “I can only beg you, my dear young lady, to 
take it in good part as it is meant ;” and he looked away as he spoke. 
“You are perhaps aware,” he continued, “that I am an older friend 
than I imagined when I first had the pleasure of meeting your 
mother at Madame Du Parc’s. I must have known her at Carlisle 
before her second marriage.” 

“Did you know mamma so long ago?” said Susanna, blushing 
with pleasure; quite young and old people are alike in respecting 
the past. “I have lived so little with her that I scarcely know all 
her old friends.” 

“I hope you will always remember me as one of them,” said the 
colonel, very courteously, and then he sighed a little sadly. It 
seemed to him so unlikely that this bright young creature should 
have any constant remembrance or thought for him ; as for his own 
recollections they were of the vaguest description. “And now,” 
said the colonel, looking thoughtfully at the neat reflection of him- 
self in the great gilt mirror opposite, “I am going to ask you to 
speak plainly to me as to an old friend, and to forgive me for asking 


PIANO. 


47 


you whether your good mother keeps the control of the money 
which comes to her in her own right. She kindly trusts me, and is 
good enough to tell me of her affairs at times; and now I find that 
she is in some temporary annoyance, from which I should most 
gladly relieve her if — ” The colonel had gone on talking without 
looking at Susy, but suddenly some movement reflected in the glass 
caught his attention, and he turned round in some consternation. 
The girl’s pale face had flushed crimson; her drooping eyes were 
full of tears of angry shame and vexation; she seemed to shiver 
with ill-concealed annoyance. The colonel had given the note into 
her hand. 

“Has mamma been writing this to you?” she said; the first sen- 
tence seemed strangely familiar. “It is with the greatest reluc- 
tance,” she read; and then, “your kind and generous heart” — she 
had seen it all before. “ Oh, that is his doing; he made her write!” 
Susy cried, with a sort of passionate choke, starting up and throw- 
ing the letter away. It was a most painful moment; the colonel 
felt quite bewildered and distressed; he backed his chair. 

“My dear young lady,” said he, “pray, pray be calm. We are 
all of us at times accustomed to look for help from those who are 
interested in us. Literary men, as we know, are not very practical. 
Mr. Marney may have been unfortunate in his arrangements. ” 

“Unfortunate!” said Susy, bitterly. 

“Well,” said the colonel, “that I will not go into now. We 
must do the best we can under the circumstances, and see if we can 
help your good mother.” 

“ What can you or I or anybody do?” said Susanna, with a fresh 
burst of indignation. “Don’t help her, don’t try to do so; believe 
me, it is the kindest thing in the end ; and pray believe that I come 
here to give your daughter music-lessons, and not— not’ to beg for 
money.” 

Susy’s natural youthful pride overcame her gratitude as she spoke; 
but she could not but melt again when the colonel, looking very 
kindly at her, said, 

“My dear girl, do believe me when I tell you that I look upon it 
as a privilege to be allowed to — a — participate in your mother’s af- 
fairs. An old fellow does not want much in life. My children 
have all they can require, and the one luxury I allow myself is that 
of feeling that I can sometimes be of use to an old friend;” as he 
spoke he put put his hand, and Susanna, as suddenly grateful as she 
had been unreasonably angry, caught it in both hers. 

“Dear Colonel Dymond, forgive me ; how much too good you 
are!” she said, and her voice seemed to vibrate, and to fill the room, 

4 


48 


MRS. DYMOND. 


The colonel, who lived a very lonely life, although he was sur- 
rounded by many people, felt as if his whole fortune might be well 
bestowed if it brought forth one such sweet look and tone as this. 
He was immensely touched and interested ; he might have said so if 
he had followed his impulse; but he resisted it, and only looked very 
kindly at the beautiful young creature struggling for the first time 
with the bitter experience of life and its impossibilities. He was 
still holding her hand, and she was still looking at him with her 
grateful, speaking eyes, when the door opened, and Tempy walked 
in ready dressed for her outing, bonneted, jacketed, with her yard- 
long gloves buttoned tight, and a general air of business-like expecta- 
tion. The colonel let go Susy’s hand. Susy blushed up, she knew 
not why. 

How often it happens that the great events of life seem to come 
about by chance, quite simply, in a moment. 

It was with Aunt Fanny’s letter in her pocket that poor Tempy 
flung open the drawing-room door and walked in upon the tete-a-tete. 
“Dear me,” said she; “how very strange!” and she looked at Susy 
with a disagreeable stare not unlike one of Aunt Fanny’s own 
glances. 

“What do you mean, Tempy?’ said the colonel, firing up. “Is 
this the way you dare to speak to me and to your friend?” 

When people who love each other quarrel, the absence of accus- 
tomed tenderness is almost worse than the superadded anger of the 
moment. Tempy, strong in her feeling of injured innocence, felt 
bitterly aggrieved. “My friend, papa!” said she. “You seem to 
have monopolized her!” Then remembering Aunt Fanny’s warn- 
ings: “ I would not believe it till now; I suppose this is what she has 
been coming for all this time.” 

The colonel, white with passion, turned from Tempy to Susanna, 
who was standing, scared, and holding to a chair. Then he closed 
his eyes, and the color came back to his cheeks. There was some- 
thing pathetic in his momentary struggle with himself, and in the 
voice with which he now spoke. 

“My child insults you,” said the colonel, trembling very much 
and turning to Susy: “and I can only repeat her words, and tell 
you that if indeed I could hope to monopolize you, to win your af- 
fection, I might feel that at last I had a home once more. I am in 
earnest, Miss Holcombe; old as I am, I can still feel that I have a 
heart. I might not have spoken, but now I feel it is*only fair that 
you should know the truth, now that others have perceived it. My 
life w T ould still, indeed, have worth for me if I could ever hope that 
you would consent to be my wife.” 


PIANO. 


49 


“ Oh no, no, no!” cried poor Susy. “You have been so dear, so 
kind. Oh, I must go back to mamma; I won’t come any more. I 
will try to forget it all.” She looked beseechingly from one to the 
other. Tempy stood hanging her head ; the colonel’s eyes were fol- 
lowing her with a sad sort of reproachful look. It was more than 
she could bear; her only impulse was to escape. 

“Papa, papa, what shall I do?” said Tempy, bursting into tears, 
as Susy disappeared. 

The streets were burning still, but Susy scarcely heeded the glare 
as she flew along, angry, jarred, vexed, and beside herself ; she hur- 
ried on. It was not her fault, but she felt as if she had done some- 
thing wrong. She no longer wondered why Tempy had looked so 
strange. A longing came over Susanna to feel her mother’s tender 
arms round her, to tell her all, to be comforted. 

Susy was very tired by the time she got back to the old green, 
blistered gates, and turned out of the straight avenue into the deso- 
late little garden, which felt more homelike than it had ever done 
before. Dermot’s straw hat was lying on the grass; Mikey’s wheel- 
barrow was overturned beside it ; the little dog came sidling up to 
meet her. Nothing else appeared; the garden was silent, and had a 
look of desertion. The sitting-room was empty, so was the kitchen. 
Susy knocked at her mother’s door, and called “Mamma! Dermot! 
Mikey!” but no one answered. In the dining-room she found a 
solitary plate set ready on the table, with some cold meat and a cake, 
and some fruit in a dish, but no signs of any one. 

Denise came in from her marketing with her basket on her arm, 
filled with green stalks and heads, while the girl was still standing 
doubtfully gazing at the preparations on the table. 

“Well,” says Denise, “you have found the letter? Madame laid 
your cover before she went off ; they caught the omnibus. There is 
what she wrote on the stove.” A note lay there with its address 
“Susy” in Mrs. Marney’s writing. The girl had overlooked it. 
“Papa wants to give the little boys a treat to St. Cloud, but I dare 
not let them go without me; Dermy knocks up so easily, and Mikey 
is so wild. How I hope our kind friends may keep you, darling! I 
hate to think of your long, lonely day. Denise has a cream-cheese 
for your dinner, and you will find the key of the cupboard under 
the clock. Ever your loving mother.” 

Poor Susy! It was all nothing, but she began to cry. She had 
been spoiled, she told herself. She had been so needed by her grand- 
father, so much made of, and now her old home wanted her no 
more, and her mother had never wanted her. She loved her with 
all tenderness, only she did not want her as some mothers want 


50 


MRS. DYMOND. 


their daughters. Another day Susy might not have felt so morbid, 
nor had occasion to be angry with herself ; to-day she was vexed 
with everything, with every one, with her mother, with the colonel, 
with Tempy, with herself. It was right enough and natural that 
Mrs. Marney should go; only a sort of lonely feeling came over Susy 
as she thought of it all. She had so longed for her mother all the 
way home ; it was in vain she scolded herself, and tried to put the 
thought away ; it came back again and again in different shapes and 
aspects, as persistent thoughts will do. Now, wiping her eyes, she 
pictured the little family party to herself — the mother, the little 
boys, the father, the children’s happy laughter. Then she saw an- 
other vision of the colonel and Tempy driving off happily together 
in their big, comfortable carriage; and then she seemed to see her- 
self as she was, in her black gown, in the silent little garden, alone. 
Her fancies were cruelly vivid that night ; everything seemed touch- 
ed with a bitter-sweet intensity of feeling. “ It must not be,” Susy 
told herself, and tried to eat the cream-cheese, and determined to con- 
quer her troubles. She was glad, however, to be distracted from 
them, and to see madame returning home along the garden walk. 

Madame was dressed in solemn “costume de ville.” She wore 
a big bonnet and veil. She carried an umbrella, and was neatly 
looped up in festoons. 

“What, all alone?” says the little old lady. “ Oh! it is not con- 
venient— a young girl like you. I have been out to take little Marie 
home to her parents in the Rue Lavoisier ; but it is different at my 
age. Your mother she should not permit you to go alone. You 
shall come with me to-night. Have you seen my apartment? Come 
in, come in; the rooms are well-disposed, are they not?” 

Madame’s apartment consisted of three rooms opening into one 
another, which she seemed to think a singular and admirable ar- 
rangement. There was a little anteroom where she dined ; then came 
a salon with four big chairs in striped petticoats, and two huge vases 
on the chimney filled with red and blue calico corn-flowers and roses. 
Beyond this came the bedroom, where madame treasured more cal- 
ico bouquets, and a tall crucifix, where also stood the large bed in 
which she reposed, with its brown cover and fringes. There was 
also an armoire a glaces she was very proud of, in which she kept 
her black jackets and white frilled caps, and where she now care- 
fully enshrined her bonnet; re- appearing shortly in her usual cos- 
tume, and prepared for a confidential grumble— there was an end- 
less variety to madame’s grievances — Max’s iniquities, the weather, 
the lodgers, the extraordinary amount of rheumatism in the quartier. 
It was, however, some relief from Susy’s own less tangible troubles. 


PIANO. 


51 


The evening was still further diversified by the appearance of two 
visitors, who were seen coming in at the garden gate. 

‘■‘Ah! Monsieur Fayard and mademoiselle,” says madame, well 
pleased; “let us go out and meet them.” 

The visitors were accommodated with chairs and made welcome, 
and presently Susy found herself one in a sober quartet. Monsieur 
and Mademoiselle Fayard were an old brother and sister living to- 
gether in the village close by. They were good-natured and kindly 
disposed to Susy, though Mademoiselle Fayard scanned the young 
lady’s toilet with some severity. 

“Do you wear your skirts still puckered in England?” says Ma- 
demoiselle Fayard, opening the conversation. 

“Oh!” says madame, “do you not know how eccentric the Eng- 
lish are, my dear Seraphine?” 

“How long has mademoiselle been in Paris?” says the little old 
gentleman. “What does she think of it?” 

“I have not seen very much of Paris yet,” said Susy, distracted- 
ly, for all the time she was still listening to Tempy’s reproaches, the 
colonel’s voice was in her ears. 

“We must see to that. I mean to take her for a day’s sight-see- 
ing,” says madame. “There is to be a grand funeral mass at St. 
Philippe ; we can visit the Chapelle Expiatoire on our way home. ” 

“And mademoiselle should see the Duke of Orleans’s mortuary 
Chapel,” says Monsieur Fayard, adapting his suggestion to what he 
called the serious of the English character. 

“Oh, how dull!” says Mademoiselle Fayard. “Take her to the 
Magazin du Louvre, and let her see the Passages and the toys in the 
shops ; and then there are the environs — she should see the environs. 
There is St. Cloud; we went only last week. It is a most delightful 
excursion. They make music, and there is dancing too on Sundays; 
you go half the way in a steamer. That is w r here you should take 
her.” Mademoiselle Fayard wondered why Susy blushed crimson. 
At that very minute the sound of a child’s voice crying was heard 
in the distance. 

“Ah! there is mamma at last,” said Susy, starting up, and hastily 
taking leave, she went running to the gate to meet her mother. As 
she reached the garden end a little group appeared, as footsore, as 
weary as anybody could expect to be after a long day’s hard pleas- 
uring, Little Mikey was in tears. Susy had recognized the famil- 
iar wail. Little Dermy was in his mother’s arms, and the poor 
woman herself seemed scarcely able to stand. 

“Here we are,” she said, wearily. “Mikey has been a wild boy; 
he has been naughty all the way home; Dermy has been a darling, 


52 


MBS. DYMOND. 


but he is tired out. You missed nothing, Susy; it has been hot and 
tiring. I can’t think what possessed Marney to start off on such an 
expedition. We went in the steamer, and dined at St. Cloud. I 
wished myself home all the way. Will sister find the boys some 
bread-and-milk? They must get to bed at once.” 

“No! no! no!” says Mikey, dolefully; “I won’t go to bed. I 
haven’t given sister my flowers yet.” 

“ Well, child, make haste and give them,” says the poor tired-out 
mother. And Mikey holds up his little hot hand, in which he has 
been tightly clutching for hours past the bunch of clover and dan- 
delions which he had got for Susy. 

“Thank you, dear little brother,” says Susy, catching him up in 
her arms. 

Mrs. Marney sat on the bedside undressing the children, while 
Susy brought up the supper for them. 

“We walked all the way from the boat,” says Mrs. Marney; “I 
thought I should never get home. Marney went off with some 
friends.” 

“Why did you not take a carriage, mamma?” said Susy. 

“Marney had got my purse, dear,” said her mother. “ Stand still, 
do, Mikey! while I untie the strings; and, Dermy, drink up the nice 
milk, like an angel. Is it boiled ? — never mind, my pet, it will do 
you good.” 

“Do the angels drink boiled milk?” says Dermy, in tears. 

“Always,” says Mrs. Marney, with much conviction. Then the 
little tired boys are tucked up in bed, and lie side by side, with dark 
eyes following their mother as she comes and goes, folding their 
clothes, putting one thing and another away. Mikey drops off to 
sleep first, then Dermy ’s eyelids fall, and Mrs. Marney takes the light 
and leaves the room. 

“How tired you are, mamma! Can’t I sit up for Mr. Marney?” 
said Susy, as she followed her mother down-stairs. She was almost 
frightened by the tone in which Mrs. Marney suddenly answered : 
“ Certainly not; that is for me to do, not for you. I shall hear him. 
Good-night, my dear ;” and she folded her in her arms, as if to make 
up for her vexed tone. 

And then at last Susy’s opportunity came, and with an effort she 
began then and there to tell the strange story of her eventful day. 
She expected she knew not what — a shocked sympathy, an exclama- 
tion of surprised regret and tenderness. “ Oh, my Susy, you never 
refused him!” cried Mrs. Marney, in consternation — “such a kind, 
good man, so well off, such a gentleman!” 

She would have said more but that Susy, shrinking from her 


IN THE DAWtf. 


53 


mother’s arms, ran away suddenly into her own room. She had 
kissed her mother and hade her good-night ; hut she was not com- 
forted now. She had longed to talk to her; the opportunity had 
come, and she felt chilled and lonely; she had so pined to be at 
home in her mother’s arms, and she had reached the place she longed 
for, hut it was hardly home. She went to her room and undressed, 
and lay down in her little creaking bed with a confused impression 
of something that she must put away from her mind — of something, 
of many things, of Mrs. Marney’s passing vexation, the colonel’s re- 
proachful look, and Tempy’s angry stare. Had she been unkind to 
him? He had been so good, so wonderfully good to her; and so at 
last she fell asleep. 


CHAPTER VII. 

IN THE DAWN. 

“ If thou wilt ease thine heart 
Of love and all its smart , 

Then sleep, dear, sleep .” — Beddoes. 

Everything was very homely in the bare little room, and quiet 
as the peaceful slumbers of its young inmate. Her work lay folded 
on a chair; her black cloak hung against the wall; the nosegay her 
little brother had picked for her was in a glass upon the window- 
sill; the window was half open to the garden that looked gold and 
gray and chill in the faint keen dawn. The shadows heaped in the 
corner began to tremble as the faint light came creeping quietly. 
The round eye of the little looking-glass seemed to twinkle and 
wink ; the light spread from ridge to ridge, it reached the gilt crown 
above the bed at last, which seemed to awaken and'-to give out faint 
thrills of light. 

Susy lay sleeping, unconscious of it all, and dreaming of the tran- 
quil orthodoxies of her past. The present was too strange and new 
as yet to dream of. Her mother’s face seemed the only^ familiar 
thing in its tangled perplexities. There is a picture of “Sleeping 
St. Barbara,” by Paul Veronese, in the National Gallery, which is 
not unlike Susy as she was then. The angel appears bearing the 
cross, and the maiden dreams on with a peaceful countenance, not 
afraid of that which is before her. So lay Susy, unconscious and 
tranquil. With the first faint streak of daylight some birds began 
to awaken in the garden with faint stirrings and chirps; then came 
a far-away knocking that reached the girl in her dreams as from 
some other world. Then she started up suddenly, confused; she 


54 


MRS. DYMOND. 


had heard a step on the gravel just outside her window which roused 
her. She sat up in bed and listened ; everything was very still, very 
serene; she could see the garden through the half-open window — it 
seemed asleep still, though the birds in the tree-tops were waking. 
A few white stars were throbbing through the dawning mists. 

Susy was confused; when she awoke, some feeling was in her 
mind that she must get up and let in the person who was waiting 
outside. Perhaps her mother was asleep, tired out, and had not 
heard the summons. 

She jumped up, wrapping herself in her warm dressing-gown, and 
slipping on her red slippers. There was light enough for her to 
grope her way; she opened the door, and came to the head of the 
stairs and looked over. The little staircase led down by a single 
flight to the front door, and as Susy stood leaning over the balus- 
ters, she saw a figure carrying a light and cautiously descending, 
and with sudden relief (for she had been vaguely frightened) she 
saw that it was her mother. Mrs. Marney was dressed, and she was 
cautiously unlocking and unbarring the bolts of the door. As it 
flew open it let in a rush of cool, keen air, and then out of the sweet 
morning, with its thousand delicate scents and fragrances, through 
the tender light breaking so suddenly into the darkened house, came 
a figure slouching and heavy-footed, reeling as it advanced — a dark, 
forbidding figure that Susanna might have fled from had she met it 
in some lonely place. 

She heard her mother whisper, “ Oh, Michael!” and then it seemed 
to her the heavy eyes were raised and met hers. There came a dull, 
thick utterance — an oath. “Are you both watching me? D — n 
you, is not one enough?” said the voice; and then Susy saw an up- 
raised hand, and heard the sound of a heavy blow and a low, sup- 
pressed cry. 

The girl started forward. She ran half down the stairs, and stood 
with the dawn in her face like some avenging angel. 

“How dare you!” she cried out, incoherently; but at that moment 
she met her mother’s appealing glance, and saw the poor hands held 
up with an entreating sign. 

There is some strange intuition which flashes quicker than words 
or even than looks; and as Susanna stood there, shivering with pas- 
sionate anger, she felt somehow that her mother’s one agonized wish 
was that she should not interfere. 

“Go, please, darling, ’’reached her in a whisper. For a moment 
she stood scarcely able to obey, and then with a great effort she 
turned slowly away ; but she could scarcely stand as she went back 
into her own room, and sank down upon her bed and hid her face. 


IN THE DAWN. 


55 


Such horror, such indignity had never entered into her mind be- 
fore. The quiet home in which she had lived hitherto had been far 
removed from such terrors as these. In the holy commonplace of 
her past life the possibility of such misery as this had not occurred 
to her; and now the wretched secret was hers, and now Susy knew 
why she hated her step-father. 

The dawn turned into day. Susy still sat there ; she was shiver- 
ing, but she did not know it; the door opened at last, but she did 
not look up ; some one came in. 

“ Are you not gone back to bed, Susy?” said her mother, in a faint, 
sharp voice. “It will not help me much if you make yourself ill.” 
Then, melting suddenly ; ‘ ‘ My poor darling ! my poor child ! I would 
have hidden it from you if I could,” she said. “ He is not often so, 
dear, and I’m used to his ways; and oh, Susannah!” said the poor 
thing, “ there’s many a worse man than my poor Michael, with all his 
faults. You are my own child; but you are not his, and you can’t 
understand how long I have loved him.” 

Poor Susy! what could she say? Every word her mother spoke 
sank into her heart ; it did not lessen her loyal trust and tender feal- 
ty, but it made her feel more and more as if they were apart. 

“Lie down, child,” her mother went on, “and let me cover you 
over. Go to sleep, darling.” 

And Susy, suddenly yielding and obeying like a child, and feel- 
ing by instinct that this was best, did as she was bid, and lay down 
and let her mother cover her over warm. What could she say? 
what could she do? The little room was alight by this; the birds 
were in full song, a distant roll of wheels had begun. There was a 
sound of people stirring about. 

Mrs. Marney went to the window and drew the curtain across to 
dim the light; then she came back and sat by the girl’s bedside; 
and Susy, worn out, fell asleep at last, still holding her mother’s 
hand, and by doing so comforted her more than by any words or 
tender devotion. The poor, much-tried woman’s heart swelled with 
tender maternal pride as she sat watching by the girl. Scheme af- 
ter scheme passed through her mind as she sat by Susy’s bedside. 
Tenderly as she loved her, she longed for her girl to go from them. 
What chance of happiness could there be fos Susy in this sad home? 
For herself, at least, there existed a reality that carried her through 
its trials; but for Susy what interest could there be? 

Mary Marney was not a bad woman, she was not a very good one; 
she would do a friend a good turn, she would pluck the feathers from 
her bleeding breast for Michael and the children. When she sent 
her Susan away for the first time it was with anguish in her heart; 


56 


MRS. DYMOND. 


but it seemed to her that it was best. And now again she could 
not bear to see her child unwelcome; she could not endure the 
thought of her Susanna watching day by day that which she her- 
self would fain conceal even from herself, learning little by little 
the whole miserable gamut of a life such as Marney’s. The girl’s 
presence seemed to drive him to wilder courses, to irritate him. He 
seemed scarcely himself at times ; or was it that, with Susanna look- 
ing on, Mary could the less easily blind herself to the life which 
Marney was leading? 

Then Mrs. 'Marney thought of the colonel, of his kindness, of his 
friendliness, of his comfortable home and good connections. Ah! 
if only she could see her Susy safely 'landed in such a home! She 
slipped her hand softly away from the young loving clasp, and crept 
from the room, closing the door very softly. The girl did not awak- 
en till late in the day, when some burst of military music from the 
high-road recalled her to life and sunshine and the sorrow of the 
night. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

AFTERWARDS. 

“Nor was this fellowship vouchsafed to me 
With stinted kindness .” — Coleridge. 

Breakfast was on the table when Susanna came in, looking very 
pale, and dressed in her black gown. To her relief her step-father 
was not there. She did not dare look at her mother at first; and 
Mrs. Marney, too, avoided the girl’s looks. 

“I have put your coffee to keep warm by the kitchen fire,” said 
Mrs. Marney. ‘ ‘ Dermy, go, like a good boy, and fetch sister Susy’s 
coffee. I shall be very angry if you spill it.” 

“Let me go, too,” says Mikey, starting up. 

“Mikey, don’t be naughty,” says his mother, absently, and as a 
matter of course; and Mikey takes this for permission, and off go 
the little pair. . They came back in a minute, with a rocking coffee- 
cup balanced between them. 

Susy sat down to her breakfast. Once she raised her eyes to look 
at her mother, but they filled with tears; and she had to keep them 
fixed upon her plate, for fear the children should see and make some 
remark. In that one glance she had seen, to her surprise, that Mrs. 
Marney looked much as usual, only a little flushed, and harsh in 
manner. 

“ Now, boys, go and fetch your father’s coffee,” said Mary a sec- 


AFTERWARDS. 


57 


ond time, as the door opened and Marney came in. She spoke in 
her usual voice. Marney certainly did not look as usual. He was 
not shaved, his handsome face was blurred, he had an odd blood- 
shot look in his eyes. Susanna turned her head away. 

It is an awful thing to hate another person; and poor Susy, so 
gentle, so yielding, felt as if she hated Marney with an indescribable 
loathing. 

“Well, my fair Susy,” said he, attempting an uneasy familiarity; 
and seeing that Susy did not answer, “Mary, my head aches,” and 
flung himself into a chair that stood by an open window. 

“ Stopping at home is the best thing to cure the headache, Mi- 
chael,” said his wife, w T ith a sigh. 

She began putting his breakfast things ready, using one hand only. 
One of the children started up and caught her by the other arm. 
Mrs. Marney shrank back. 

“ Take care,” said Susy, involuntarily, with a glance at her step- 
father, “you hurt her.” 

“It’s my rheumatism,” said Mary, hastily; then looking at Susan- 
na, she said, imploringly, “ Go, darling, tell Denise I am coming.” 

Susy started up. She had to pass close to her step-father, and as 
she passed she unconsciously pulled her dress so that it should not 
touch him. 

Marney looked at his wife with an odd fixed glance. “Did you 
see that?” said he. “What have you been whining to her about?” 

“ Do you suppose I would complain to her?” said Mrs. Marney. 

“You can, if you like,” rejoined he, sulkily. “ When is that old 
fool of a colonel coming to the point?” 

Mr. Marney sat turning over his day’s politics. The little boys 
were building an impregnable castle with their bricks. Susy was 
standing in the little kitchen, by the furnace where the family meals 
were cooked. Her mother came in, looking for her; she had been 
more frightened by the girl’s scared looks than by Marney’s fiercest 
outbursts. Susy went up to her mother, and put her two arms tight 
round her neck. “Oh, mamma! mamma! I have been thinking. 
Oh couldn’t you come away with me, and bring the little boys? I 
will work for you day and night. Only come! Only come!” 

“Ah! my child,” said her mother, “do not say such things. 
How can I come? I have chosen my own life; I must abide by it. 
You, too, must live your life. You might be a happy woman, and 
help us all,” said her mother, looking fixedly at her. “ And make 
another person very happy — that dear, good Colonel Dymond, who 
worships the ground you stand on. Michael saw it from the first.” 

“Hush, mamma!” said Susy, deeply wounded. “How can you, 


58 


MRS. DYMOND. 


of all people, urge me to marry? Oh! forgive me,” she hastily 
added, seeing her mother’s pained look, and that her eyes were full 
of tears. 

“Promise me at least, Susy, that if he ever comes again you will 
not refuse him without reflection,” said her mother, wistfully. 

“He said something yesterday about waiting,” Susy answered, 
“I don’t know what, nor do I care. For it is you, mamma, whom 
I live for. I will even bear with my step-father,” Susy added, fal- 
tering, and looking through the open door towards the adjoining 
room, “if it makes you happier.” 

“No, no, no! it will not make me happier,” cried the poor woman, 
torn between her two hearts. “ You must live your own life, my 
child, not mine. I hoped you would never have found it out. It is 
not the same to me as to you. We make it up,” she said, with a 
pitiful smile. “Sometimes he has forgotten all about it in the 
morning. The children are accustomed to our ways ; you are used 
to other things. You are my own child; but you are not his, and 
you cannot understand how long we have loved each other.” 

Susy stood strangely silent, watching her mother with dry, won- 
dering eyes. Each word smote her. The poor child’s heart was 
full of pain ; it seemed so hard, so very hard, to leave that dear, bent 
head to bear its burden alone, and yet Susy felt that her mother was 
speaking the truth. 

“I will try and think of some plan,” she said, faintly, and as she 
spoke the brick castle fell over with a crash in the adjoining sitting- 
room; Denny began to cry; Mr. Marney called out, “Mother, moth- 
er!” and Mrs. Marney hastily turned and ran across the passage in 
through the open door. Susy also passed out into the passage, and 
then hurried aimlessly into the garden. 

It was a lovely day; everything was shining, and yet everything 
seemed to ache, from the long, green grass at her feet to the sky 
above; the poplar-trees shivered; the nasturtiums looked desolate. 
Susy, as she went by, saw madame at her window making signs. It 
seemed to Susy as if she was a person looking on at a dream. Was 
it also a dream that she was -alone— that no being in the whole world 
wanted her or needed her? She only brought trouble upon every 
one. The colonel looked at her with reproach ; even Tempy shrank 
from her. The girl had come aimlessly along the shaded avenue 
which ran by the palings that divided the villa garden from the 
road ; the lilacs grew thick on either side, and their dark green foli- 
age beneath the blue made leafy walls to the little path. 

As she hurried along she nearly ran up against a strange young 
man, with a long nose and twinkling eyes, who looked at her curi- 


AFTERWARDS. 


59 


ously and compassionately as she passed. She scarcely saw him, 
and yet this stranger, as strangers sometimes do, knew the whole 
story of her troubles. He had come by chance, stumbling into the 
secret of poor Mrs. Harney’s sorrowful life — the secret she would 
have hidden from her nearest and dearest. He had returned by 
some midnight train ; reached home at dawn ; come out into the 
garden, hearing Marney’s step. He had looked on for a moment at 
the tragedy; heard the blow fall; hesitated, and while he hesitated 
the door shut — the tipsy man staggered into the house. It was 
nothing to him, and yet the actors interested him, as actors do inter- 
est those who, having seen them stirred by great passions and events, 
now recognize them as they pass by quietly. The young man 
watched Susy as she brushed past and walked towards the house 
again. Madame du Parc was still at her window. “My son is 
come! He arrived last night,” shouts the old lady. “ ’Ave you seen 
him in the avenue?” 

Susanna shook her head; she could not speak. She turned aside, 
like a poor little hunted hare, to ther sitting-room window, which 
was open. Some one called her; the little boys came scampering to 
meet her; the little dog flew out barking. “ Here she is,” said her 
mother’s voice. “ Ah! Susy, here is a good friend who has come to 
see you. We have been speaking of you. Dear child, listen to 
what he has got to say.” It seemed all like some awakening from 
a miserable dream. 

The colonel, with his neat hat and umbrella, was standing by the 
window. Marney was gone. Mrs. Marney, who looked as if she 
had been crying, was sitting smiling in the big arm-chair. As the 
colonel turned to meet Susanna, he was quite shocked by the scared 
expression of her face, by the black lines under her eyes. A flush 
came into his yellow cheeks, and his looks became very wide and 
bright. Then he came up to her and said, very simply, ‘ ‘ My dear, 
your mother and I have been talking of something very near my 
heart. I have come to bring you a message from my girl. She 
wants to come and ask your forgiveness for what she said; she her- 
self sent me to you, or perhaps I should not be here. Susy, I am an 
old fellow; but you know me and you know my children, and if you 
could make up your mind to love me a little, and to come to be my 
wife, I think, I am sure, we could make you happy. Your good 
mother consents, and thinks she could trust you to me.” 

“Indeed! indeed! Susy, I could trust you to him,” cried the poor 
woman, eagerly. “I could be happy if I felt you safe in such 
hands. Ah! darling, if it were only for my sake!” 

“You must not influence her,” gravely interrupted the colonel. 


60 


MIIS. DYMOND. 


He seemed quite clever suddenly to Susy, and able to understand 
everything — every shade of feeling. “It would be a cruel mistake 
for Susy to marry me, or anybody else, unless she could do it for her 
own sake, and because she thought she could be happy. I dare not 
think what it would be to me and mine if we could hope to make 
her so.” 

Susanna, in her black dress, stood in the centre of the room, facing 
the two who wished her so well. She was still holding a sprig of 
ivy she had gathered. She seemed scarcely to see what was before 
her, or to be understanding what was happening; but it was not so. 
She was living too intensely to give much sign of what was in her 
mind. She looked from her mother, with the anxious, speaking 
eyes, to the kind face of the time-worn man who loved her. She 
had never till this moment realized the selfish, human, irrepressible 
happiness of being another person’s happiness. What strange ex- 
perience the last few hours had brought ! She seemed suddenly to 
have come into shelter, after being in a great storm or battle. An 
hour ago she had been alone in all the world, her heart had seemed 
almost dead, and now she was alone no longer, and her pulses were 
beating so that she could scarcely breathe. 

Colonel Dymond, waiting for her to speak, thought that her si- 
lence lasted a very long time. “ Susy!” he said, almost shyly. Some- 
thing in his voice touched her— it seemed natural and familiar. She 
was very young, she was easily touched, easily made grateful. It 
seemed so natural to say Yes, and to put her future into this good 
friend’s keeping. What this future contained — where it might lead 
her in its onward course — she knew not. She accepted the present 
with a true heart, and with a faith and loving conviction which did 
not grow less as time went on. 


BOOK II. 


SUSANNA AT CROWBECK. 


“ Touch us gently , Time , 

Let us glide along thy stream 
Gently, as toe sometimes glide 
Through a quiet dream; 

Humble voyagers are we, 

Husband, wife, and children three 

Barry Cornwall. 





CHAPTER I. 

BEACON FIRES. 

“ Some say thy fault is youth 

One September evening a bonfire was burning high up near the 
summit of Tarndale Crag in the Lake Country. The fire burned 
clear, with keen flames piercing the dying light. The smoke went 
spiring gently into the air, the fading sky was wide and tenderly 
serene above the moor and the lake below, where the waters, still 
flushed with sunset, came rippling against the rocks and the placid 
slopes of meadow-land. All about Crowbeck Place the chestnuts 
and the ash-trees had lit up their autumnal bonfire of yellow and 
russet flame ; was it for the marriage of summer and winter, or in 
honor of Susanna’s wedding-day that they were flaring? Meanwhile 
Crowbeck Place, the white house by the lake, was making ready for 
its new mistress; it stood with shining windows and new-mown 
lawns, gleaming between gardens and meadows that sloped to the 
water-side. Farther on was Bolsover Hall, wrapped in an ivy cowl, 
and also illumined, with many windows repeating the west; and 
then in the distant shadow rose Friars Tarndale, the fine old home 
of the lords of Tarndale, all shuttered and abandoned. 

The hills beyond Tarndale were already in purple and shadow; 
this upper end of the lake was still alight; a fisherman’s boat was 
patiently bobbing up and down, and trying to complete its daily 
count of fish, doomed from their cool depths into the frying-pans of 
the neighboring gentry. But the lights perhaps frightened the fish, 
for the fisherman pulled grumbling to shore before recrossing the 
water on his way home to the village. The people living in the 
houses along the lake-side came to their cottage doors, and looked 
across the water towards the bonfire flaming on the opposite moor. 
’Twould be for the colonel’s wedding, they said, and they wondered 
“ what sort the new leddy was like.” Mrs. Barrow, the fisherman’s 
wife, standing in her door-way, with the convolvulus hanging over- 
head and three curly-headed little urchins clinging to her knees, 
told Mrs. Tyson, from the Lake Farm, that she “ wonnered to see the 
lights, for her master told her Miss Bolsover had sent orders from 
the Ha’ to do away wi’ the bonfires. The squire himsel’ had 

5 


64 


MRS. DYMOND. 


the fagots carted up, but Miss Bolsover said she would na’ ha’ a 
bleeze. ” 

Mrs. Tyson, a martial figure with a basket on either arm and a 
straw bonnet fiercely cocked, replied, with a laugh, “ That it was na’ 
to be wondered at if the family at the Ha’ did na’ favor the new 
wife, considering their relationship to the old one.” And so the two 
voices chattered on, gossiping peacefully to a romantic accompani- 
ment of evening, of distant echoes, to the rush of the stream under 
the little stone bridge hard by. Mrs. Tyson was a sturdy cynic; 
Mrs. Barrow, who was a peaceable woman, taking a friendly view 
of people and events, tried to find excuses for all. “ Miss Bolsover 
might surely be a bit fashed; she who had been a mither so long to 
the colonel’s two children at the Place and to Mr. Charles at the Ha’ 
as well ; it was hard to gi’ all up to another— and Miss Bolsover her- 
sel’ such an uncommon spirited leddy.” 

“ Mr. Josselin and Miss Tempy will be thinking they’ve had eno’ 
o’ mithers,” says Mrs. Tyson, dryly, with a hitch at the baskets. 

M’appen Tempy ’ll be for taking a husband, now her father’s bring- 
ing hoam a bride.” 

“ Some fwolk do meak a fuss and a bodderment,” says Mrs. Bar- 
row; “Miss Tempy and the new Mrs. Dymond are gran’ friends sure- 
ly. Why, Mrs. Dymond is scarce older than Miss Tempy hersel’.” 

“More’s the pity,” says Mrs. Tyson, sternly. “Many a young 
lass will tak’ an old man for his brass. My Jane would ha’ wedded 
wi’ old Roger Hathwaite if it had na’ been for our warnings. Her 
feyther said he wad tak’ the stick to her if she had onything to do 
wi’ that old foxy chap.” 

“Eh! but the colonel is a good gentleman and Crowbeck is a 
pretty place,” says Mrs. Barrow, “wi’ flowers in the gardens and 
ripe fruit on the wa’. Eh, Tim?” And the mother proudly patted 
one of her curly-heads. 

“ Miss Tempy gied us pearrn and applen out o’ t’ garrden,” says 
shrilly Tim, grinning and joining in the conversation. 

“And Miss Tempy ’s auntie cam oop and said we werrn’t to 
have’n,” cries curly Tom, at the pitch of his voice; “and Miss Tem- 
py she bade us rin heam quick wi’ what we gotten.” 

“Ah! Miss Tempy is a Dymond, and na’ niggard, like the Bolso- 
vers,” says Mrs. Tyson, with a last hoist of the baskets. “I should 
na’ like Miss Bolsover o’er my head. My goodness! she will raise a 
rout to see the fire; I dinna ken who can ha’ kinnelled it!” Mrs. 
Tyson’s speculations suddenly ended in a sort of gulp; two figures 
had come up silently, mysteriously, as figures do when darkness is 
falling. 


BEACON FIKES. 


65 


“ It’s well for you, Mrs. Tyson, that } r ou don’t know,” said a youth- 
ful voice, speaking in hollow tones. 

“Nonsense, Mrs. Tyson,” cries his companion. “ Whoever lit the 
fire will get five shillings by coming up to the Place and asking for 
me. Good-evening, Mrs. Barrow, I hope Tom and Tim have been 
good boys to-day.” And the two young people walk on— a very 
young man and a very young woman. The girl kirtled in crimson, 
active, with a free, determined air; the youth, a slim, sandy youth, 
with a red face and shabby clothes and gaiters. He looks like a 
gentleman, for all his homely clothes and ungainly ways. 

“Whoever ken’t Mr. Josselin and Miss Tempy were stan’in 
thear! I thowt they were goasts,” cries Mrs. Tyson, and she strides 
off to her own home somewhat crestfallen. 

Meanwhile the brother and sister had stopped for a minute upon 
the bridge down below, and stood breathing in the peaceful evening. 
Even eager young souls just beginning life are sometimes a little 
tired, and glad of the approach of twilight with her starry steps and 
resting sights! colors dying, workaday noises silenced one by one, 
natural echoes sounding clearer and more distinct — night approach- 
ing. They could hear the fresh roar of the torrent dashing against 
the weed-grown rocks below, and then the sleepy chirp of the birds 
overhead in their nests, and the rustling of branches, and far-away 
echoes of dogs and lowing cows travelling homeward. The scat- 
tered cottages along the stream were lighting up their lattices one 
by one, the flowers were giving out their last evening perfumes be- 
fore being blown out for the night. As the sunset died away out 
of the sky, the distant bonfire seemed to burn brighter and brighter. 

“ So Mrs. Tyson doesn’t know who lit the bonfire,” says Tempy, 
with a laugh. “She generally knows everything. Jo, how could 
you frighten her so? People mustn’t say we didn’t want the fires 
lit. It seems disrespectful to papa and to Susanna too.” Josselin 
Dymond didn’t answer, but hung over the old stone parapet with 
his hands in his pockets, whistling the hunting chorus out of the 
“ Freischiitz. ” 

“I wish you and Charlie would not whistle from morning to 
night,” cries the suddenly indignant Tempy. “You let everything 
go on; you allow papa to be insulted, you don’t interfere when you 
ought to speak, you leave me to bear the brunt of it all. You never 
said a word this morning when Aunt Fanny countermanded the 
bonfire, and you just stand whistling, and think that is all you have 
to do in life,” cries the sister. 

Josselin looked at her with an odd half-amused expression, and a 
gleam in his blue eyes. 


66 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“I’m sorry you ain’t pleased with us, Tempy. We quite agreed 
with you, but you and Aunt Fanny made such a noise it was im- 
possible to get in a word. We did our best, and — and — it wasn’t 
George Tyson who lit the fire. You can give me the five shillings 
if you like.” 

“ What, you /” Tempy cried, confusedly. “But the fire is over 
there on Crowbeck Crag, and you are here, Jo.” 

“I came over in the fisherman’s boat just before you met me,” 
said her brother. “Look! There’s Charlie’s beacon lighting too,” 
and as he spoke another gleam began to shine on one of the farther 
peaks like a bright red star rising against the dark line of the moor. 

“ Oh, Jo! what will Aunt Fanny say ?” cries Tempy, half terrified, 
half triumphant. 

‘ ‘ Uncle Bolsover will catch it, ” Jo answers, philosophically. ‘ ‘ He 
always does.” 

Jo and Tempy Dymond walked on without another word along 
the road that leads by the head of the lake to Bolsover Hall and to 
the Place beyond the Hall. Their steps quicken as they reach the 
park gates, but they are encountered by a stout, shadowy, agitated 
figure, evidently on the look-out for them. 

“Here you are at last! Been looking for you everywhere. 
Heard you were in the village, ” says the squire, mysteriously, and 
hurrying up. “ Terrible upset up here — most distressing. Tempy, 
you can soothe your aunt; go up at once, there’s a good girl — she’s 
hysterical ; we don’t know what to do with her. My wife has sent 
me down for Jeffries. That mistake about lighting up the beacons 
has quite upset poor Fanny. Good heavens ! there’s another of the 
d — d things, ’’cries the poor squire, catching sight of the second 
illumination. 

Tempy, conscience-stricken, turns to her brother. Can he have 
the face to laugh! 

“ Oh ! Uncle Bolsover, I— I’m very sorry,” says Jo. “ You mustn’t 
mind my laughing — I’m really very sorry. I thought my father 
would wish the bonfires lighted, as it is the custom down here ; per- 
haps Aunt Fanny won’t mind so much if I go and tell her it’s not 
you. I mean that we — that Charlie and I — ” Jo was getting some- 
what confused. 

The squire stopped short, looked from Josselin to Tempy, but- 
toned himself up tightly. “ Perhaps you had better let Tempy ex- 
plain,” says the cowardly Bolsover. “ You — you might come with 
me for the doctor, Jo.” 

“No, I’ll have it out,” says Jo, setting off running up the sweep 
as hard as his long legs could carry him. He did not stop to ring, 


BEACON FIRES. 


67 


but hurried in by the back way and by the familiar passage to the 
door of Aunt Fanny’s sitting-room, which Charles Bolsover used to 
call the harem. Teapots, coffee-cups, liqueur-stands, salts, fans, eau- 
de-cologne, every soothing appliance seemed scattered in disorder 
about the place. The curtains were drawn to keep out the odious 
reflection of the lights without. Miss Bolsover was lying back, 
with her sister-in-law, Mrs. Bolsover, and two lady’s-maids in at- 
tendance. 

“ Who is it? — what is it? Are you Doctor Jeffries?” screams the 
invalid, wildly. 

Jo walks in, half penitent, half defiant, and without further pream- 
ble confesses to his share of the catastrophe. Once more Miss Bol- 
sover goes off into genuine hysterics; to be thwarted in any way al- 
ways upsets her nerves, she says. All the cats and the dogs join in 
the melee. Josselin Dymond, at a sign from Mrs. Bolsover, leaves 
the room, and as he opens the door the gleams of the bonfires throw 
the shadows of the hall windows in great checkered squares upon 
the marble. 

“Josselin!” says Mrs. Bolsover, following him, “you had better 
go after your uncle, and tell him at once of your inopportune re- 
joicings. You have done enough to upset your aunt, even without 
the agitations of this ridiculous marriage ; and do try and hurry up 
Jeffries. He is never at home when he is wanted,” says Mrs. Bolso- 
ver, going back to her harassing duties. 

Some very good people have a singular fancy for speaking severe- 
ly of their neighbors, for whom, if the truth were known, they feel 
no very special dislike. Mrs. Bolsover, generally, and upon princi- 
ple, blamed every one and everything, and yet it was but a habit of 
speech; she was one of the meekest of women. Aunt Fanny used 
rarely to blame, but to praise with many adjectives and exclama- 
tions, and yet somehow she was not meek, and they were all afraid 
of her. Her fat hand ruled Bolsover Hall as well as Crowbeck 
Place, for Mrs. Bolsover, who had married late in life, never assumed 
the reins of management. At the Place Colonel Dymond naturally 
turned to his late wife’s sister for sympathy, companionship, and ad- 
vice. He trusted Mrs. Bolsover, who was his own sister, but he 
was a little shy with her — they were too much alike, both serious, 
sincere, reserved people, feeling much, but holding back where Miss 
Bolsover did not fear to rush in. As for the squire, the master of 
the house, the head of the Bolsover family, he was a Fact rather 
than a person. He paid the bills, shot the pheasants, went on the 
box when it was convenient; he turned a lathe, and had also steered 
a small steamer on the lake at one time, but this was not considered 


68 


MRS. DYMOND. 


safe by the ladies, and the squire was made to return to the main- 
land again. He could photograph a little ; he was passionately fond 
of waltzing — the young ladies were still glad of him as a partner in 
default of younger but not more active men. Mr. Bolsover liked 
dress, he twirled his mustaches, he walked with a curious dancing 
step. He was called the squire by the country people, Uncle Bolso- 
ver by Jo and Tempy, Frederick by his wife and sister, Uncle Bol 
by Charlie Bolsover, his nephew, who was supposed by many people 
to be the heir. 

Perhaps few people in this world had ever given less trouble to 
others than this kind and friendly little man ; many of us may have 
laughed at him, but all who have known him have had a kindly re- 
gard for the squire. And yet it must be confessed that he was a 
coward, that in the presence of the Vehmgericht in the boudoir he 
scarcely dared show his own amiable predilections, among which 
must surely be reckoned the good-will he felt for the pretty young 
bride now expected at Tarndale. 


CHAPTER II. 

A WEDDING-PARTY. 

“ The bride she is winsome and bonny , 

Her hair it is snooded sae sleek , 

And faith fu? and kind is her Johnny, 

Yet fast fa' the tears on her cheek ." — Old Song. 

While the fires were burning away on Tarndale Crags, and the 
discussions also flaming up and dying away, as discussions do, while 
the people at the hall and round about the lake-side were speculat- 
ing as to her motives, the bride had turned to her mother with tears 
and many parting looks of love and farewell. She involuntarily 
shrunk from her step-father Mr. Marney’s embrace, but she held her 
little brothers close in her kind arms, with kisses and promises of 
happy things, of letters and gifts, of long summer holidays to be 
spent at Crowbeck Place, all together, with her husband the colonel’s 
full sanction and approval. 

The two little boys had been to the wedding in brand-new jackets 
and trousers— the gift of their elderly brother-in-law. Except for 
this unusual magnificence all had been quiet enough. The colonel’s 
family was in England, as we know, and Susanna had no one to in- 
vite. Her mother gave her away. The only other witness was Ma- 
dame Du Parc, looking like a picture out of a second-rate fashion- 


A WEDDING-PARTY. 


69 


book, in her cachemire, and chapeau-a plumes, and lemon kid gloves. 
After long years in France, Madame Du Parc had grown to look more 
completely a Frenchwoman than if her Scottish antecedents had nev- 
er existed. There is some curious process of amalgamation which 
makes our adopted habits often seem more marked and individual 
than those we are naturally born to. Madame’s French was more 
voluble, her English more broken, than if she had been born in the 
Faubourg instead of at Pollok, N. B. ; her clothes, her chaussons and 
camisoles, were completely and entirely characteristic of a French hour- 
geoise. The chapeau-d-plumes was purchased for the occasion of Su- 
sanna’s marriage ; as for the famous cachemire, madame had worn it 
at her own wedding some thirty years before, when she had married 
the mathematical master of the school where she had taught so long. 

Susanna was not dressed out of a fashion-book, but she looked very 
charming. The little brothers opened their round eyes to see sister 
Susy a grand lady. “Zat is ’ow I likes to see ’errr!” says Madame 
Du Parc to the children — “ala bonne heure ! hein ! hein /” The chil- 
dren could hardly recognize their sister in the grand lady in the 
shining gown, with a carriage waiting and a husband in attendance, 
who took leave of them in her feathery bonnet; but her kisses and 
her tears were the old ones all unchanged, and so were her smiles 
and her kind eyes. How much nicer she looked in her wedding- 
dress than in the rusty black gown she had worn so long after she 
came from England! But she had put off her old clothes and her 
mourning on her wedding-day, and to please the colonel she had 
donned her silk attire. At Neuilly, as in Tarndale, it was thought 
a great match for Susanna, when it was known that she was marry- 
ing Colonel Dymond. The epiciere, the washerwoman, the mercibe 
next door, were only translating Mrs. Barrow’s gossip into French 
as they stood in the shady avenue waiting to see the carriage drive 
off with the bride and bridegroom. The difference between their 
ages was as great as that between their fortunes; she was twenty 
♦and penniless, he was within a year or two of sixty, and rich enough 
to gratify all her fancies, as well as his own. One little back room 
at Madame Du Parc’s contained Susy’s possessions— her work-box 
and her desk, and the old hair trunk from her grandfather’s rectory, 
which she had brought with her to Paris. But neither Crow beck 
itself nor the family mansion in Wimpole Street could hold the 
colonel’s many belongings. It was natural that his relations should 
be vehement in their exclamations. 

Susanna had scarcely any relations to exclaim, except her cousins 
the country doctor and his family, who were glad to hear qf her 
comfortable prospects. As for her step-father’s cordialities, they 


70 


MRS. DYMOND. 


were somewhat ominous; and the colonel, although a simple and 
unsuspicious person, instinctively felt that he should have to pay a 
good price for Mr. Marney’s hearty congratulations. Mrs. Marney 
wept tears of mingled joy and sorrow for parting, and for happi- 
ness; and when Susy herself, standing with her husband in the 
chapel, put her hand into his, it was with grateful trust, it was with 
tender respect and admiration. The bitter experiences of the last 
year, during which she had been so unhappy, seemed condoned and 
forgotten. She felt that it was for himself, for his goodness to her- 
self, to her mother, to all of them, that she was marrying John 
Dymond, and she vowed to herself to be a good wife to him, to bring 
a true heart to him and his • a loving home, like that dear old home 
with her grandfather, seemed hers one more ; a happy life, a tender 
welcome, a good man’s honor and love. Her own love for her colo- 
nel was made up of many mingled feelings; gratitude, tenderness, 
glad submission— all had a part. He gave her peace and self-re- 
spect, the delight of helping those she loved, a society to which she 
was glad to suit herself more and more every day, conversation to 
which she and her mother listened with deep attention and in per- 
fect faith. Susy was leaving her mother’s home ; but Mrs. Marney 
and Susy both knew that the secrets of that sad house were best 
borne unshared and unspoken. Its martyrdom (for martrydom it 
was) was made lighter, perhaps, by Susy’s absence. 

No flowers were scattered before the newly -married people as 
they came away walking across the autumnal garden, followed by 
the little household of the villa; only the crisp fallen leaves rustled 
under their feet, a scent of September was in the air, some sudden 
dry soft breeze shook the branches overhead. Susy came with her 
hand in the colonel’s arm. He already stooped a little, she walked 
erect and firm, trying to keep back her tears. 

The horses waiting outside in the road by the shabby green gates 
were already chafing when Susy got into the carriage, helped up 
the steps by Marney’s officious hand. The little boys waved their 
new caps and raised a sudden shrill shout. It was an unlucky 
shout, for it frightened some stray fowl that had been perching in 
the branches of an old acacia-tree overhanging the gate, the bird 
started up flapping its wings with a loud angry crow, the horses 
were frightened, and for a minute they were scarcely to be held in. 

The colonel, who had lingered saying good-bye to Mrs. Marney, 
rushed forward greatly alarmed for his bride, but Susy was too 
much absorbed to be frightened even by the untoward little inci- 
dent. 

“Good -bye, good-bye,” she said, leaning forward, with all her 


A WEDDING-PARTY. 


71 


heart going out to the mother she was leaving behind forever — so it 
almost seemed to her. 

Afterwards Susanna remembered that as the carriage was driving 
away, a branch from the acacia-tree fell to the ground with a crash, 
again startling the restive horses almost into a gallop. 

Mrs. Marney, who was superstitious, turned pale. Marney shrug- 
ged his shoulders as he moved away with an odd expression on his 
handsome face. 

“ Old branches rot and have to fall when the time comes,” says 
he, with his Irish accent. “Twill be a good thing for Susanna if 
she is left with a handsome jointure, Polly. I wish I could have 
got the colonel to sign a proper settlement. I suppose the old fel- 
low was afraid of his family.” 

“Oh! It is not good to talk of such things at such moments. 
Oh no,” cries Madame Du Parc, indignant with Marney for his 
cold-blooded cynicism. Before resuming her usual domestic camisole 
and ordinary habits, the good lady carefully examined the acacia- 
tree. The branch, so she observed, had been partially sawn through, 
and furthermore she ascertained from her son Max, the engraver, 
on the occasion of his next visit to his home at Neuilly, that he 
himself had occasioned the mischief. 

“The branch was dead/and I began to cut it away,” he said, 
“but I was called off to a friend, and forgot all about it.” 

“You call zose frens! frens, who only interrups, who stopSj, who 
smokes,” says madame, bitterly, speaking English as she usually did 
when she was excited; “that M. Jourde he was here again yester- 
day; he came with M. Caron. Does he not know I sees through 
’im? Why could you not give up conspirations for once and come 
to the wedding, Max? The old colonel he look well considering; 
and that dear child was pretty like everything. You should pay a 
visit of felicitation to the new married when you next go to London 
about your catalogue. ” 

“I have no wish to see the colonel look his best or to felicitate 
any one,” said Max, dryly. “ And, listen, mamma,” he added, with 
some emphasis, “if you go on talking like this about me and my 
friends you will get me into some serious trouble.” 

Max, usually so quiet and easy-going, looked vexed and thorough- 
ly in earnest, so that his mother was frightened. 

* ‘ Allons done! par exemple , ” cried the poor lady once more. ‘ ‘ Ah, 
you joke!” 

“Iam not joking,” Max answered, gravely ; “ these are bad times, 
and though you may not know it, people are ready enough to sus- 
pect each other. Monsieur Marney is (so I have every reason to be- 


72 


MRS. DYMOND. 


lieve)in the pay of the police,” and Du Parc raised his voice and 
looked towards the door. Was it a sudden breeze? The door 
which had been half open to the passage leading to the garden 
creaked a very little and seemed to move. 

Madame’s bright old eyes darted one quick glance at Max, and 
then she ran nimbly to the window and threw it up. She was in 
time to see Marney slowly crossing the grass and lighting a cigar as 
he went along. 

“Boys, where are you?” he called out, with some affectation of 
loudness. “Polly! where have ye hidden the brats?” 


CHAPTER III. 

LONDON CITY. 

“ I love the haunts of old Cockaigne , 

Where wit and wealth were squandered .” 

Locker’s London Lyrics. 

After a few days’ loitering journey from Paris to the coast, 
along a road which is pleasant with limes and poplars, and green 
horizons, and where (if so inclined) pilgrims may still travel from 
one shrine to another, and rest each night in a different city, with 
wonders to be worshipped, and ancient stones still working miracles, 
the colonel brought his young bride to England. There had been 
some talk of a foreign tour, of Italy and the South, but Colonel 
Dymond longed to be home again by his own hearth with his chil- 
dren and the accustomed faces round about ; and to Susy, London 
was as strange and new a city as Rome itself. She also longed to 
be at Tarndale and beginning her new life, only she was glad of a 
little time to get accustomed to it first, to her fresh dignities, her 
silk dress, her gold ring, her strange golden fate. 

Was this Susanna Dymond, this new-born being walking with 
her husband by her side in dignified ease and sober splendor? She 
used to glance shyly at the colonel as he walked along; at the well- 
preserved, grizzled man, the kind brown face, the gray mustache. 
He was about her own height, well brushed, well blacked, well 
starched. All was of a piece, decorous, respectable, and Susy be- 
gan to feel as if perhaps, of all things in the world, decorum and re- 
spectability were the most intoxicating. What a contrast to the life 
from which she had come away— -no bills, no troubles, no seams 
ripped and opening wide, no storms, no daily struggle for life, no 
Marney to terrify her, no tears to hide away from her mother. All 


LONDON CITY. 


73 


seemed smoothed and calmed and in order. In Susy’s pocket was 
a well-filled purse, and by her side her attentive, courteous husband. 
Well-dressed people nodded smiling as they passed them on foot or 
in well-appointed carriages. Susy wondered if at that minute her 
mother was wearily trudging along the dusty Neuilly road on her 
way home from market. If only mamma had married another 
John, thought Susy. The colonel was not the least of the marvels 
of this new life in this wonderful London, with its wide garden-like 
parks, where the trees were scattering their leaves not less freely 
than at Crowbeck; where the bells came jangling over the house- 
tops, and the birds flew across the horizons of the overflowing streets. 
Susy had never seen London streets, never driven in carriages, never 
shopped in her life before. How many things there were she had 
never done! The colonel, enjoying her pleasure, took her to see the 
sights — to the Tower, to the Abbey, and to St. Paul’s, and to the pict- 
ures. The Opera was closed, but Susanna went with her husband 
to the play once or twice, and he introduced her there to some of his 
friends, who immediately began to call from their clubs and from 
various resorts, and who all lost their hearts to the gentle and fair 
young bride. 

“ Dymond had made a most fortunate choice,” said the old friends 
and they left their cards again and again at the door of the little 
hotel where the new-married pair were staying. 

The colonel was pleased with Susy’s success, and wrote home 
long accounts of their visitors— admirals, generals, brigadiers. Su- 
sanna’s admirers were high up in the service. 

“Old bores!” said Tempy, crossly, as she impatiently tossed one 
of her father’s letters to her aunt Fanny. Jo and Tempy had come 
over to spend the day at Bolsover, and were sitting with their two 
aunts in the sacred precincts of the harem. Miss Bolsover was still 
extended on the sofa; she had not yet recovered from the effects of 
the colonel’s marriage. 

Whatever storms and trials might assail the spirit, Aunt Fanny 
liked her little comforts. The room was sprinkled with many de- 
vices and musical instruments, with footstools, with flowers, and 
white cats, and Pomeranian dogs, and pugs with silver collars. The 
sunshine came through muslin of various shades, the whole place was 
scented with sandal-wood, and faint patchouli, and various drowsy 
emanations. Jo always declared there was something Turkish in 
his aunt Fanny’s character as well as in her surroundings, and that 
patchouli made his head ache. 

The other prodigal nephew, Charles Bolsover, who did not mind 
patchouli, though he also rebelled against his aunt Fanny’s silken 


74 


MRS. DYMOND. 


bowstrings, was sunk back in a big arm-chair stroking the Persian 
cat’s tail. The ladies were assembled round their tea - table, Mr. 
Bolsover, in a mountaineering costume, was preparing to walk down 
to the village with Jo. 

“Have you read papa’s letter, Aunt Fanny?” says Tempy, jeal- 
ously taking up her grievance again with the sugar-tongs. “I can’t 
think why he is so pleased, though I can imagine her enjoying it 
all. How Susanna must like being flattered?” 

“ So would you if you could get a chance,” says Jo from his door- 
way. 

‘ £ She will never get anything but plainest truths from me nor 
from auntie either,” says Tempy, helping herself to plum-cake. 

“We will let her know what to expect,” says Jo, with a brotherly 
grimace. 

Here Charlie suddenly pulled the cat’s tail, and Poussette uttered 
a miaull. 

“ Oh de poor litty, pitty, darling ting!” cries Miss Bolsover, precipi- 
tating herself. ‘ ‘ Charlie boy, how can you be such a naughty, 
cruel uncle.” 

‘ ‘ Hey ! what is all this?” said Uncle Bolsover, chiming in. * * When 
are they coming? Where are they staying?” 

“They are at an hotel in Piccadilly. I suppose Wimpole Street 
is not fashionable enough for the bride,” says Aunt Fanny. 

The colonel had not taken his young wife home to Wimpole 
Street; the house was shut up, and the memories that were locked 
up in the dismantled rooms were melancholy, and seemed to him 
out of time and place. One day Susanna went with her husband 
to see her future home. She looked up at the great stone staircase, 
peeped into the lofty drawing • rooms, with their catafalques of 
shrouded furniture. She shuddered from the long, black dining- 
room, into the square, dark study, with its gratings and dingy 
rows of books, and came away with a feeling of intense relief, leav- 
ing the family mansion to its ghosts and cobwebs, and to the care 
of that forlorn and courageous race of charwomen who dwell in 
solitude and wander from emptiness to emptiness. From long 
habit, perhaps, they do not heed their own footsteps, nor look be- 
hind them startled when the doors bang in the distance. 

The new married pair had settled down in one of those comfort- 
able little hotels which lie in the centre of things and of people, 
quiet and convenient oases amid the noisy vortex of Piccadilly, 
Bond Street, and May Fair. From Eiderdown’s Hotel Susy could 
come and go and receive her husband’s friends, and see her sights 


LONDON CITY. 


75 


and complete her trousseau without effort or exertion. It was in- 
deed a fairy London to the girl; beautiful, expensive bargains were 
blooming in the windows of the shops all about, arcades close at 
hand were lighting up and festooned with objects of every shade 
and fashion ; hats and bonnets floated from plate-glass to plate-glass, 
all triumphant with garlands and streaming ribbons ; shoes of rain- 
bow colors pointed their silken toes in long procession ; delicate kid 
hands were beckoning from behind the shop-fronts; other windows 
were stuffed with gimcracks and trinkets ; nor was she ever tired of 
the jewellers’ shops and the toy-shops which fascinated her most of 
all. Susy longed for her mother to enjoy all these childish pleasant 
things with her, and for Mikey and Dermy to exclaim alternately at 
bonbons and diamonds. There was one of these treasuries which 
she used to pass every day as she came out for her daily walk with 
her kind old husband. In the centre of the great pane of glass, 
amid a shining sea of gems, lay two loveliest opals repeating the 
lights in some tender Mozart-like-color fashion of their own ; be- 
tween the opals lay one bright star of diamonds, shining with brave 
chords of sunshine and flashing beauty. 

“Oh! how mamma would like those beautiful opals, John; and 
how wonderfully that star does shine,” says Susy, lingering, while 
the colonel in turn glanced at his wife and then at the star again. 

How beautiful she was ! how well the ornament would look in her 
thick brown hair! thought the admiring husband, and he sighed with 
some odd regret and apprehension even in his happiness. There 
was something almost as pathetic in the colonel’s moderate happi- 
ness as in the girl’s simple enjoyment. 

Susy was not romantic, not touched by any of the greater senti- 
ments, but she was childish and rational, as childhood is, and he was 
rational and childish, as age is apt to be. 

September in Piccadilly is a very modified solitude. The car- 
riages roll more freely, perhaps, the pavements are not quite so im- 
passable as later in the year; but if the weather is fine, the parks and 
gardens are even pleasanter than at any other time. At night Susy 
from her sitting-room window could see a distant world, twinkling 
with the lights of the great tumultuous city which was now her 
home. Paris had been but a sad place to her, burning and garish 
with pleasures which were not for her, as she came and went sadly 
like a young postulant in her black gown. But London was a home ; 
here she had a place, here she felt a certain right to be, and to a share 
in the sumptuous life. It seemed to her as if this, too, this right to 
be happy, was among the colonel’s many gifts to her. So from her 
windows Mrs. Dymond watched the lights by night, and by day she 


76 


MRS. DYMOND. 


used to look out at the wide horizon, so changing and various where 
the mists were passing or dividing, and showing the palaces and the 
workshops, the streets and the spaces of the mighty city. Beyond 
the Park and the Abbey towers she had seen the river flowing be- 
tween its banks, and the long lines of embankment and the dock- 
yards, crowded with the life, with the commerce of the world. All 
these things she enjoyed and noted as she came and went day by 
day, not alone, but in kind company, not as a wayfarer looking on, 
but as a sharer in the great feast. 

As I have said, she had been taken to the Abbey, and St. Paul’s, 
and the Tower, and heard the city bells jangling cheerfully, and then 
one morning before luncheon the bride (always with her colonel by 
her side) went to visit the pictures in the National Gallery. They 
seemed stately to her, somewhat gloomy, but splendid and satisfying 
all the same. 

“It is a very fine gallery, you know, my dear Susy, one of the 
finest in Europe,” said her husband. “ It is a very great thing for 
us having such a collection. Let me see, is this Raphael or Michael 
Angelo? Oh! Carlo Dolce, of course.” 

The good colonel walked on to the end of the long gallery, trying 
to find some picture to show her which he once remembered having 
had pointed out to him by a painter, and Susy had been standing 
for a moment before the well-known portrait of “Andrea del Sarto.” 
She was not so much examining the picture as trying to remember 
who it was it recalled to her mind, when she looked round sudden- 
ly, feeling a glance upon her, and by some odd chance she found 
herself scrutinized by two dark, questioning eyes not unlike those 
she had just been gazing at, and as she looked she knew who it was 
the picture had reminded her of. It was this very man whom she 
had scarcely seen and never spoken to, Monsieur Max, the artist, the 
revolutionary son of her kind old friend, Madame Du Parc, who used 
to abuse him by the hour with motherly pride. During what long 
afternoons and mornings with Madame Du Parc had Susy not list- 
ened to Max’s many misdeeds and shortcomings, to his aberrations, 
to his difficulties, his uncertain comings and goings. 

Susy was shy, and though she longed to speak to this dangerous 
character, she only stared, smiled, exclaimed, half put out her hand, 
and then drew it back once more, seeing a look of surprise in the 
living Andrea’s face. His frizzed hair was not quite like the pict- 
ure, and for a moment she was confused between her previous im- 
pression and the vivid presentation before her. Du Parc, too, was 
uncertain, and being also shy, specially of grand ladies, he merely 
bowed and passed on. 


LONDON CITY. 


77 


“ What is it, my child?” said the colonel, as she joined him, look- 
ing excited, and with blushes. 

“I saw some one from Neuilly,” she said, “Madame Du Parc’s 
son, Monsieur Max. I wanted to speak to him, but he did not seem 
to know me and walked away.” 

“Perhaps it is as well,” said the colonel, consolingly. “These 
sort of people are difficult to shake off again once one happens to 
get entangled with them. ” 

“I wanted to send a message to mamma,” said Susy, wistfully 
looking after the erect figure of the young man as he proceeded with 
echoing steps down the long gallery. 

It must be confessed that Susanna’s youthful mind was intent 
upon something at that time to her more important than her pres- 
ence in that solemn temple of art among the painters and their 
works, something nearer to her heart than priceless heritages of light 
and solemn aspiration, than the signs and tokens of the noble dead 
who live still for us, as we drift along upon the stream of life. She 
had a ten-pound note in her pocket, she was pondering upon toy- 
shops, she was longing to spend it for her mother and the children, 
and she was ready to leave the gallery at the first sign of weari- 
ness the colonel might give. 

As for Max Du Parc, walking along the great shining halls, he 
had no thoughts of gold -pieces to spend elsewhere. His whole 
mind and attention were present, riveted, absorbed. He was at 
home, though a stranger among these old friends and teachers. He 
had come commissioned to make some engravings for a French 
dictionary of art, and for the moment his interest and enthusiasm 
completely overpowered him, and carried him away even from the 
thought of the w r ork which had brought him there. 

He seemed to be in some Elysium among the gods and goddesses, 
and their incarnations. The mind of Titian was there in its glory. 
There were the dreams of Turner breaking and dawning and van- 
ishing into space, while calmly serene the golden illusions of Claude 
were floating before his eyes; or was it a Velasquez or a Giorgone 
whose chivalrous, harmonious soul touched the disciple to some 
ambition beyond the common aspect of things? All about shine 
together with the noble realities, the golden superstitions of art, of 
religions, and of pagans, and the truth upbears them fearlessly in 
its generous train • the mythologies of Greece, of mediaeval Italy 
are there ; angels sing their shrill songs of praise, wielding their 
fiery swords and fiddle-bows with a fanciful strength, or gods and 
goddesses revel under summer skies. A whole revelation of past 
life, of by-gone strength, -wisdom, and splendor ever present is re- 


78 


MRS. DYMOND. 


corded for us who pass in turn looking up for a moment on our 
way at the pictures which remain. 

Max looked and wondered and looked again, and then remem- 
bering the work for which he had come, began making his deliber- 
ate choice, and returning again and again to the types which seemed 
to him best fitted for his purpose: As he stood half hopeless, half 
deliberate, before the Giorgone knight in shining armor he heard 
a cheerful, somewhat husky voice behind him : the Dymond menage 
had caught him up again. 

“Well, my dear Susy, have you had enough of all this?” And 
young and eager came the answer, “Oh yes, thank you, John, I’m 
rather tired of it; and now will you take me to the toy-shop in Bond 
Street?” 

Max did not even turn his head, a sudden impatient scorn for 
Philistinism came over this young dw’eller among tents. 

Susy and her husband left the gallery, descending the steps from 
the great entrance that lead to the stately square, and then went 
walking leisurely along the streets to the haven of Susy’s desires. 
The colonel left her there, where she wished to be, absorbed and 
happy, bending over a counter full of toys ; then promising to re- 
turn for her in time for luncheon, he walked a little way up the 
street, thinking of the wondrous change which had come into his 
life, and resting in tender admiration on the thought of this bright 
star which had risen to lighten his somew'hat dark and solitary 
path. Surely, surely, it must be for the good of all. His dear and 
excellent sisters would recognize the fact when they knew more 
of Susy, of her unselfish goodness and sweet, happy nature. Tempy, 
too, would be far happier in the end with such friend and com- 
panion at hand than she had ever been before. Of late her letters 
had not satisfied her father. He was glad that she should have 
something more suitable, more feminine than boys’ society. Charlie 
Bolsover was certainly not the companion he should have desired 
for either of his children. The colonel had many perturbations on 
the score of Charlie. Aunt Fanny was naturally carried away by 
her warm feelings and affectionate nature, the colonel used to think. 
She had even on one occasion hinted at a possibility for the future, 
upon which the colonel had immediately and most decidedly put 
his absolute veto. Charlie was the last person in the whole world to 
make a good husband to Tempy or any one else. The sooner he was 
started for life the better for himself and for everybody else, and 
most especially for Tempy, who was sixteen, and would soon be no 
longer a child. All these very consequent and rational suggestions 
were in the colonel’s mind as he walked leisurely along the street. 


‘A BOAT, A BOAT UNTO THE FEKRY. 


79 


He had given Susanna half an hour by his watch for her shopping. 
Then the colonel himself suddenly succumbed to temptation. Susy 
with all her youthful admiration had never gazed into the jeweller’s 
shining shop-front with such covetous eyes as did the gray-headed 
colonel now. He had come to the shop-window she so much ad- 
mired. There was the star shining on its blue velvet horizon; the 
colonel looked, blushed rather guiltily, hesitated, went in, and pres- 
ently came out with a little sealed parcel in his pocket, and lo! one 
more planet had set out of Bond Street. As he walked away he 
thought of something he should like to have engraved on the back 
of the jewel; he turned back, not without some confusion, disap- 
peared through the glass door once more, and giving the parcel to 
the obsequious shopman, desired that Stella mea should be written 
upon the ornament, with the date of the wedding-day. 


CHAPTER IV. 

“A boat, a boat unto the ferry.” 

“ Oh where will I get a good sailor 
To take my helm in hand ?” — Old Ballad. 

September is shining upon Crowbeck as upon Piccadilly; glori- 
ous September’s last golden hours are lingering still. A boat comes 
peacefully floating on the buoyant waters of Tarndale. A young 
woman is sculling, her pink dress, her broad back, her bright red 
curls are familiar to us by this time. She is strong, and used to the 
task, and the boat makes way rapidly. A fat gentleman in knicker- 
bockers and a garb of many colors is steering, while a handsome 
young man dressed in white, with an amber tie and a broad white 
felt hat, is lolling in the bows, languidly running his slim fingers 
through the water. 

“Delightful morning; nothing like a fine September,” says the 
stout gentleman, heartily, giving a jerk to the rudder as he pulls at 
his watch with the other hand. 

“ Take care, Uncle Bolsover, you’re running us in,” cries the girl, 
in her loud, not unmusical voice. 

“ Take care, Uncle Bol,” says the young man, with a drawl, “you 
have been steering quite straight till now, and Tempy too has done 
very well. I like to float smoothly along with no jerks.” 

“Don’t talk nonsense, Charlie,” says the girl, looking round at 
him with her bright blue eyes. “ Remember you have to scull 
back all the way/’ 


6 


80 


MRS. DYMOND. 


Uncle Bolsover lias by this time got out his watch with some 
effort, for it is very large, and tightly wedged into his belt. “ One 
o’clock!” says he. “Time’s up. By Jove! there’s Jo fishing un- 
der the pine-trees! Capital! Halloo, Jo, you are to come back to 
lunch. Tempy won’t stop. She says she has to go home.” And 
good-natured Uncle Bolsover, with another jerk of the rudder, turns 
the boat’s head to shore with many cheerful signs and halloos. 

Jo comes forward quietly from his station under the pine-trees 
and begins to wind his tackle. 

“Got anything in your basket, Josselin?” asks the languid youth; 
the words are carried clear across the water. 

Jo, for answer, lifts the cover of his shabby basket, which is filled 
with silver to the brim. 

‘ ‘ He was out by six, ” says Tempy, who dwells on her brother’s 
achievements with sisterly pride. Then, with a dash of the oars, 
the girl turns the boat’s head in towards the little promontory where 
her brother is standing. Some charm, delicate, shifting, incandes- 
cent, falls upon the lake and its banks, upon the swallows still 
darting in long curves along the water, upon the people in the 
boat, upon Uncle Bolsover, and smiling Tempy, and silent Charlie ; 
upon the old Manor Farm across the lake with its spreading trees 
all changing for September. Everything is lovely on every side. 
Lambdale is divided into tender shadows, and Crow Crag stands 
piled between the lights. A thousand thousand flashing ripples 
seem floating up to meet the boat from the far end of tiie lake 
where the Hall chimneys are to be seen smoking for luncheon, and 
farther still are the roofs and gables of Friars Tarndale beyond the 
elms. At the foot of Crowbeck the little promontory is starting 
out from land, shaded by a grove of pines. Between their straight 
stems springs a wilderness of flowers and feathery grasses, tangling 
and delicate, and tasted by the droning bees all the summer long. 
Here the young fisherman, motionless for hours past, had been es- 
tablished with his tackle, just stepping from light to light into the 
shadow as it slid from beneath his feet. A little farther on was the 
landing-place by the boat-house, where the Place boat, fastened by 
a rusty chain, was bobbing and basking on the water among a shoal 
of minnows. 

As Uncle Bolsover was carefully steering in, and looking for 
posts ahead, Tempy rowed slowly and more slowly. 

“ Oh dear! for the last time, Charlie,” she said, with a sigh; “you 
are going, they are coming back ; everything is to be different. ” 

“Not everything,” muttered Charlie, in a low voice. “Some 
things won’t change, ” and he looked hard at Tempy’s face. It was 


83 

“A BOAT, A BOAT UNTO THE FERRY.” 

Charlie’s image of home, of conscience, of truth in life, almost the 
only one he had. She too looked up ; she scarcely understood him 
at first, then, suddenly, the girl’s heart began to beat, she forgot her 
boat, forgot her oars, and Uncle Bolsover; the whole lake seemed 
flowing, upheaving in some strange sympathy; she caught a crab 
and would have fallen backward if Charles Bolsover had not leaned 
forward, seized the oars with one hand, and pulled Tempy back 
with the other. 

“Take care,” cries Jo from the shore. “ What are you thinking 
of, Tempy?” 

“By Jove! that was a narrow escape, my dear,” pipes Uncle Bol- 
sover, starting forward and half upsetting the boat. 

In the meadow just beyond the pines, George Tyson, who is at 
work with his scythe, looks up, hearing the splash of oars, and leaves 
his gleaming circles of steel and feathering grass to come down to 
help to pull them in; but before he can reach the landing-place, 
Charlie Bolsover, with more agility than might have been expected 
from such dazzling white flannel, is already out and standing on a 
jutting rock, holding the boat-chain, of which he throws the end to 
George. 

“Jo, you row back, there’s a good fellow,” says Charlie, standing 
firm on the shore and helping out Tempy. “I left some books up 
at the Place; I’ll be back with them directly.” 

Jo gives one of his shaggy glances, deliberately shoulders his bas- 
ket, and without more ado steps into the boat. 

The squire looks slightly perturbed. “Thank ye, George,” says 
he, abruptly, in return for George’s rustic salutation from the shore. 
“Don’t be longer than you can help, Charlie,” and Uncle Bolsover 
again looks at his watch, as if to make up by extra punctuality for 
any lack of prudence. Charlie’s feelings for Tempy have been dis- 
cussed by the family conclave before now, and indeed Aunt Fanny 
is not against the match from her own point of view, but they all 
feel that the colonel’s prejudices are not to be disregarded. How- 
ever, the squire reflects that this is Charlie’s last day, he is going 
back to Oxford at once. The colonel himself could not object to 
his fetching his books. So the two young people are left standing 
side by side for the last time in the fragrant shade of the pine-trees 
promontory. 

On the opposite shore of the lake, Tarndale village climbs the 
mountain sides just where they divide into a gorge. Sometimes, as 
now, this gorge is shining with light and innumerable reflections, 
sometimes it is covered by mists and silver shadow. In stormy 
weather water-falls suddenly stream down the steep sides of the 


80 


MRS. DYMOND. 


mountain, dashing in white flashing lines from rock to rock. But 
on fine days the channels are dry, the lake lies calm, the boat puts 
out, the fisherman with his sail floats by on his way to the creek 
where the trout lie sleeping, the swallows swim in the sweet air, the 
cows from the Manor Farm come out straggling knee-deep into the 
water. The sweet, demure intoxication of the place and time seems 
to reach to the very heart of all things, animate and inanimate. 
George Tyson, the farmer’s son, who is something midway between 
those two conditions, might have seemed a loutish fellow in London 
streets, but to-day, as he stands with his gleaming scythe mowing 
the grass on the slope of the Crowbeck meadow, any painter of 
dreams might have taken him for a figure of mythology, a young 
god of country things, a lingerer from the golden age. For a min- 
ute he looks up at the two, as they pass along out of the shade of 
the pines, skirting the meadows; by the path that leads to the Place, 
and then he goes on with his work. Tempy herself might have 
stood for some blooming nymph of the hills. Her thick auburn 
locks were piled and twisted round her head; her dress was of ging- 
ham, a rough straw hat shaded her smiling eyes. A greater con- 
trast than the two cousins, who suited each other so well, could 
scarcely have been found. Charlie Bolsover was dressed in the ex- 
treme of fashion, with every charm by which art could detract from 
natural good looks. He was handsome, dark, slender; he affected 
a manner even more than fashionably soft and modulated. Jo once 
said that Charlie’s hair was velvet, his eyes black satin, his coat 
plush, and his manners silky; but such as he was, jewellery, laven- 
der-water, jimcrackery, notwithstanding, he seemed the most inter- 
esting person in all the world to the young nymph looking up so 
sadly with her innocent blue eyes, for the time of parting was at hand. 

“I may come up with you, mayn’t I?” said Charlie, and Tempy, 
all changed somehow, gentle and simply yielding, agreed. 

When did she not agree to Charlie’s wishes? To her cousin she 
was almost always gentle, though her manner by the rest of the 
world might have been characterized as bluff. 

Tempy, fresh and kind-hearted, conceited and diffident too, as 
such people are, was yielding enough, for all her decision, to those 
she loved. She walked on quickly; she did not want to let herself 
dwell upon Charlie’s leave-taking. She forced herself to think of 
many very tangible preoccupations in the way of those changings 
and shiftings, flappings and dustings, which in civilized countries 
herald the approach of new-married and other important people. 
The girl had, among other things, a general cheerful sense of her 
own importance, and that the world could not possibly get on without 


“a boat, a boat unto the ferry. 


83 


her — neither her father nor her step-mother, any more than the very 
competent house-maids in charge of the Place. This conviction was 
a consolation to her in many of the subsequent trials and disappoint- 
ments of life, although, in her case (as in other people’s), these trials 
and disappointments often consisted in the fact that she discovered 
that others could get on without her better than she expected. Could 
Charlie get on without her? she sometimes asked herself, as she did 
to-day again, treading the clover and the meadow-sweet, breaking 
the little twigs from the hedge as she passed, and feeling somehow 
that to-day was not like any other day for either of them. Once 
she looked up, it was for an instant only; she could not meet the 
force of the fixed gaze that was turned upon her. 

“I’m looking good-bye,” said Charlie, simply, seeing her blush 
up ; and then again Tempy raised her blue eyes, and he saw in them 
something so gentle, so innocently tender, that a sudden conviction 
came over him, some overpowering sense of her goodness and affec- 
tion, of the reality and all-importance of her feeling. What was he, 
to be loved by so true, so dear a creature — he who had no future to 
bring her, not even a clear past for her innocent eyes to look through. 
What was he, to dare to love her? And yet, as he looked, he knew, 
even without words, that she loved him, and this seemed reason 
enough, even in his troubled life, for him to try to win her. 

“ Tempy, Tempy,” he said, scarcely knowing what he said, “don’t 
you know what it all means?” He spoke with a burst of strange 
emotion, triumph, passion. 

George Tyson, sharpening his scythe, looked up again from the 
meadow, and saw them standing side by side near the brown cow 
in the upper field. From the boat, far away upon the water, Uncle 
Bolsover could still be heard shouting a cheerful view-halloo. The 
girl neither heard nor heeded it all ; she cared not who was there, 
she stood passive, stirred by a wonder. Girls think of love as of 
something all round about in life in the hearts of others; when they 
first dimly feel that they, too, are touched or swept onward by the 
great tide, their whole girlish heroism rises to assert their independ- 
ence. For an instant the lordly Tempy stood with sudden convic- 
tion of love in her heart, absolutely sure, outwardly unmoved, silent 
and still for an instant. Then the whole world burst in upon her 
senses; the blue sky arching in triumph over her head, the birds 
flying in the air, the music of life all around, the rustling leaves, the 
voices floating from the water, all seemed but a part of the great 
thing which had changed the whole of life for her. Charlie’s looks, 
so familiar, so strong, and so gentle, seemed, like words, to speak, 
to order, to entreat. 


84 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“ Tempy, why don’t you answer?” he cried. 

Then she looked up at last. “Yes, I know what it means, Char- 
lie,” she whispered; and the young fellow, overcome and touched 
to the heart, shaken from self and from his fantastic egotism and 
fancies, caught her suddenly for an instant. 

“Tempy, you won’t let them part us?” he cried; “we belong to 
each other now.” 


CHAPTER Y. 

STELLA MEA. 

“ Gremio : Nay, I have offer'd all , I have no more ; 

And she can have no more than all I have : 

If you like me, sfie shall have me and mine." 

Taming of the Shrew. 

Charlie was gone, and Tempy remained by the lake-side to pre- 
pare *f or her father and step-mother’s home-coming, and to ponder 
and wonder over the difficulties that lay before herself and Charlie. 
Would her father ever consent to their marriage? In time, in time, 
thought Tempy. Jo, her sympathizing friend and brother, looked 
ominously sympathetic. 

* ‘ If only he had any profession, and if only he hadn’t spent so 
much money,” said Tempy, turning very red. She was too straight- 
forward to disguise the truth from herself, and she began already to 
feel accountable for Charlie’s misdeeds. 

“ If only he had any prospects at all,” said Jo, gloomily. 

For Charlie was not the heir, though Uncle Bol made him an al- 
lowance; another uncle somewhere in South America was not the 
less entitled to his rights because his address was somewhat uncer- 
tain. People had imagined that Aunt Fanny’s savings would come 
to Charles, but Tempy knew that most of these moneys had been 
engulfed in a desperate speculation of Miss Bolsover’s, from which 
the squire had also suffered. This dearly-bought experience had 
been useful in helping Aunt Fanny to point a moral when not un- 
frequent letters arrived from Oxford containing expostulations, ex- 
planations, and tradesmen’s accounts. Charlie had all the Bolsovers’ 
love of cheap finery, and a special aptitude for more expensive 
amusements as well. He had shown himself a reckless youth, un- 
punctual, unpractical, experimental, driving up unexpectedly at dif- 
ferent hours of the day and night in fresh dilemmas, and without 
money to pay his cab. On one occasion (just before being sent 
down from Oxford) Charlie had persuaded Jo to join him in some 


STELLA MEA. 


85 


venture there on a neighboring race-course, where Miss Bolsover had 
miraculously appeared, parasol in hand, and, with great spirit and 
presence of mind, extricated the two boys then and there from the 
hands of a couple of sharpers. The colonel was specially bitter 
about this affair; with paternal sympathy he considered Jo to have 
been misled, but he had no excuse for his nephew, and even refused 
to see Charlie again before he went abroad. 

Poor Tempy gave a great sigh as she remembered this episode 
and its possible influence upon her fate, but she trusted her cousin. 
He had promised her on that occasion that he would bet no more, 
and he had never failed Tempy yet. 

Tempy had constituted herself Charlie’s guardian of late, ever 
since he had outgrown the legal authority of Uncle Bol and of 
a certain Mr. White, his mother’s cousin, to whom he still, from 
habit, used to apply for advice and forgiveness on occasion. The 
Rev. Samuel Wilberforce White was a worthy but preoccupied 
man, dwelling among the piano-fortes in a modest lodging in Soho, 
and one who, taking life philosophically himself, found it difficult 
to realize the overwhelmning importance of other people’s failures 
and successes in their own estimation. He was a hard -worked 
man, well on in years, with a bald head, a smiling face, and with 
so many troubles and delinquencies on his hands that Charlie’s par- 
ticular share scarcely counted so seriously in the incidental confu- 
sion all round about the curate’s house as at Bolsover, that decorous 
and orderly establishment, where life passed to the sound of punctual 
gongs, docketed, discussed, and labelled for weeks beforehand. 

Mr. White, from long practice, could grasp the heavier troubles 
of life far better than its proprieties and social problems, and being 
a simple-minded person, he took it for granted that others were like 
himself. He also remembered what it was to be in love, and could 
sympathize with Charlie’s state of mind when that young gentle- 
man, immediately on arriving in town, poured out his feelings over 
a pipe by the study fire ; and the result of their conversation was 
that Charles Bolsover that very evening was ringing at the visitors’ 
bell of Eiderdown’s Hotel, and was being shown up by a boy in 
buttons to his fate. Alas! the little page was no Cupid in disguise. 

The young lover tried to look even more at his ease than usual, 
but his heart was in his mouth, as the saying is, when he was shown 
into the room where Colonel Dymond sat reading the paper by the 
light of two candles in tall silver candlesticks. The blinds were 
drawn, the room was dark, but the light fell upon the colonel and 
his handsome profile and his gold eye-glasses. He looked up when 
the young man was announced. 


86 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“Why, Charles, are you up in town?” said the unsuspicious 
colonel, kindly, willing to condone the past in his present new- 
found happiness. ‘ £ How d’ye do ? How did you leave them 
all?” 

This friendly greeting gave the youth some hope. 

“Much as usual, Uncle John,” said he, with a faint revival of 
spirit. “ They are all quite well. Aunt Fanny has set up a guitar 
and another litter of cats; Uncle Bol has been out sailing on the 
lake, and Jo has caught nearly all the trout.” 

Charlie tried to speak in his usual tranquil drawl. He was won- 
dering all the time how he could best begin upon the subject he 
had in his mind. 

“You must stop and dine with us,” said the colonel, with a mag- 
nanimous effort, “and be introduced to your — your aunt.” 

“I am at Mr. White’s for a day or two,” said Charlie : “lam 
afraid he is expecting me home to dinner; then I go back to Ox- 
ford, Uncle John. That last term was very unlucky. It has all 
been very unlucky,” he added, “and I’m afraid they will look very 
black when I first get back ; but nothing shall go wrong again if I 
can help it. Mr. White has kindly written to my uncle and made 
every arrangement for paying up what I owe at present out of the 
funds still in hand; my future claims I must contrive to meet out 
of my allowance. I can assure you it is a lesson I sha’n’t forget. 
These sort of difficulties do bring home one’s utter folly as nothing 
else could do,” said poor Charlie, with some bitterness. 

The colonel was very much taken aback to hear his nephew, 
usually so indifferent to reproach, speaking in this practical, sensi- 
ble way. He somewhat mistrusted sudden reforms, and had not 
yet the key to Charlie’s change of mind ; he was so used to look 
upon him as a hopeless young scapegrace, forever suggesting re- 
bellion to Jo and to Tempy, forever giving trouble and having to 
be extracted from difficulties, that he was almost disconcerted to 
find the youth sitting opposite to him, amber tie, cameo ring and 
all, talking like a man of forty. 

“I — I am very glad you take such a sensible view of the past, 
and I hope you will remember the lesson,” said the colonel, some- 
what perturbed and still anticipating a demand for money. “ Such 
reckless extravagance as yours makes everybody else suffer, and 
most especially your good Aunt Fanny, who has been absolutely 
devoted to you for years past. ” 

The door opened while Uncle John was speaking, and a waiter 
looked in, carrying a small paper parcel, which had just come from 
the jewellers. 


STELLA ME A. 


87 


“ Oh, take it to Mrs. Dymond, she is in her room/’ says the colo- 
nel, hastily. 

The momentary break gave Charlie courage to go on. After all, 
Uncle John is a kind-hearted old fellow, he thinks. lie may be 
vexed at first, he will be sure to relent in a little time. Charlie 
seems to see Tempy’s tender, steady eyes before him, and to hear 
her saying, “ Courage! don’t waste words.” 

“Uncle John,” he said, when the colonel looked round again, 
“there is something else I want to say to you. I came to London 
to say it. How could I — when could I see you?” 

“See me! here I am,” says the colonel, in a more natural voice, 
and not unkindly. “Well! what is it about? I hope no more — ” 

Charlie, usually so deliberate, so self-controlled, lost his advantage, 
and the cruel gods having first taken his reason, now allowed him 
to rush upon his own destruction. . 

‘ * I don’t suppose you will approve particularly, but it’s no new 
thing,” he says, quickly, and starting up to his feet. “For years 
past, and especially this summer, I have known that my feelings, 
Uncle John — in short, that I have fallen hopelessly in love with 
Tempy. I don’t deserve her, but I love her truly with all my heart; 
indeed you may depend on me in future,” says Charlie. 

But Colonel Dymond, who was quick - tempered, who perhaps 
over - estimated his daughter, who had never liked or approved of 
Charlie, who had expected some confidence of a very different nat- 
ure, now blazed up in a sudden wrath, which was all the more fierce 
because the colonel was usually so gentle. He dashed away his 
paper. 

“You must be out of your mind, Charles. Do you propose your- 
self as a fit husband for my little girl— you who have given us all 
nothing but trouble ever since you left school? — you who are the 
last man in the world I should ever think of, or consent to accept 
as a son-in-law. Of course you have not spoken to her on the sub- 
ject, and I beg that you will never refer to this nonsense again, to 
me or to anybody else. ” 

“She knows, of course she knows how much I love her,” said 
Charlie Bolsover, gravely, turning very white, and putting a strong 
control upon himself. “You have no right, it is not fair, to speak 
to me in this way. I don’t pretend to be worthy of her, but if she 
had not loved me I should certainly not have come to you.” 

“ I have a right to protect my daughter,” cries the father, in his 
coldest, hardest tone, also getting up from his chair; “and I am 
surprised that you should have spoken to her in this — in this most 
unjustifiable way without waiting to ascertain my wishes. She is 


88 


MRS. DYMOND. 


sixteen and romantic; she will get over a girlish fancy, and thank 
me for what I am doing. As for you ” — confound your impudence, 
thought the colonel— “ I really need hardly point out to you how 
undesirable you would be in every way as a son-in-law. Your own 
fortune is involved, you are past twenty-one, but you have never 
shown one single sign of moderate application. Your chosen com- 
panions are people of blemished character and reputation — the less I 
say of them the better — and now you come to me, after a whole year 
of disgrace and — and laziness and — rustication, and ask me to give 
you my child, ” cries the colonel, relapsing into a fatherly and not 
unnatural fury. 

At that moment, as the two were standing side by side— Charlie 
still very pale, and with difficulty mastering his indignant protest, 
though all the time some secret consciousness of justice and right- 
doing upheld him, the colonel flushed with suppressed anger and 
trembling nervously — at that very moment the door opens again, a 
smiling, sweet apparition comes in flying with floating draperies 
across the room, holding a shining star in one upraised hand. 

With a bright and sweet and happy face, unconscious Susy stands 
there. “ Oh, how good of you! how lovely!” cries the smiling 
young goddess — “ oh, thank you, dear John. How — ” 

The apparition suddenly stops short, seeing that her husband is 
not alone. She turns confused from one to the other; looks from 
the colonel’s flushed face to Charlie with the pale and trembling 
lips, and finding that something is seriously amiss, the brightness 
dies away out of her face. 

“This is Charles Bolsover, Susanna,” says the colonel, very grave- 
ly, but regaining something of his usual manner with an effort. “ I 
am glad you like your star, my dear, but will you leave us a minute 
to finish our business?” And Susanna slowly turns, and, looking 
rather anxiously from one to the other, leaves the room once more. 
All the brightness seemed to go with her, but something less angry 
remained behind. “ I may have seemed hasty,” says the colonel 
as she left. “ I beg your pardon, Charles; but it is truest kindness 
to speak plainly on such occasions, and not to try to ignore the diffi- 
culties, the insuperable difficulties, in the way of such a match. 
Some marriages are impossible, and absolutely unsuitable in every 
way.” 

“Did you find that out when you married, Uncle John?” said 
Charles, bitterly. “It’s no use my staying,” he went on. “ All I 
have to say is that I love Tempy with all my heart and with all my 
strength, and that you are doing us both a cruel wrong. I shall not 
be the only one to suffer, remember that,” said Charlie. “ I shall 


STELLA MEA. 


89 


not change; you don’t know me if you think I shall ever change; 
and she won’t change.” 

“ And I am not in the habit of changing my mind either,” said 
the colonel, dryly. “ If there is any other way in which I can help 
you at any time — ” 

“You needn’t insult a man,” said Charlie, furious, and feeling 
that he was losing his head. 

He went away very quickly, without taking any further leave. 
He was dreadfully shaken — bitterly, miserably disappointed. He 
brushed past Susanna in the passage, and got out into the street 
he hardly knew how. Susy went back into the room where her 
husband was sitting ; she was haunted by the poor boy’s wild looks, 
she could not forget them. 

The colonel, after a few irritated stamps up and down the room, 
sat down to his papers again with a final tug at his well-fitting coat- 
collar, and tried to dismiss the disagreeable subject from his mind. 
He felt perfectly satisfied with himself, and he told himself that he 
had done his duty as a father and a colonel in the army, and that it 
was his part to save his child from so outrageous a marriage, and 
yet he could not prevent an undefined and continuing feeling of ir- 
ritation and apprehension. What business had the fellow to put 
him into such an unpleasant position, to throw all the disagreeables 
of interference upon him? Poor little Tempy, it was a girlish fan- 
cy; it would soon pass off. . . . 

It ought to have been easy enough to put such an unpleasant sub- 
ject out of his mind now, with Charlie gone and no Tempy at hand 
to look reproach, and while so sweet an audience stood beside him 
ready to agree to every one of his conclusions. To Susy, indeed, 
the colonel made very light of the whole affair. 

“ Didn’t you know Charles Bolsover? He has set up some absurd 
nonsense about Tempy. It is simply preposterous and out of the 
question, and I told him so very plainly.” 

“Oh, John, didn’t you give him any hope?” said Susy, looking 
troubled. 

“What the deuce should I give him any hope for?” said the colo- 
nel, testily. Then he softened again as he read the expression in 
Susy’s eyes; it was not reproach, not even protest, but a sort of dif- 
fident sympathy, pity, bewilderment. “Some day, when Tempy 
knows more of the world, when she realizes what sort of a fellow 
this is, she will be grateful to her old-fatlier, M said the colonel; “ and 
she and you, Susy, will do me justice,” he added, with some re- 
proach in his tone. 

“ We can do you justice now, John,” his wife answered, gravely, 


90 


MKS. DYMOND. 


raising her eyes to his ; and as she looked she saw his grave face 
brighten up. 

Perhaps a juster, less impressionable spirit might have made things 
less pleasant than Susy could bear to do. For, to tell the truth, 
though she tried to believe her colonel must be right, she could not 
forget the poor lover’s stricken looks. Hers was not an uncompro- 
mising nature, and herein lay the secret weakness and the flaw in her 
true heart. Some harmonious spirit presided at her birth and gifted 
her with qualities perhaps too well suited for this life, so that from 
her childhood- she seemed to fall naturally into her place, into her 
daily task, to unravel quietly and patiently the tangled skein of other 
people’s wishes and opinions. It was not that she did not feel for 
herself, but she was slow to express what she felt, diffident to assert 
her convictions ; she could look at life from that wider and less 
selfish point of view which helps some people through its chief per- 
plexities, but which also takes away from the useful influence which 
those exert who possess the clear, unswerving minds which belong 
of right to the rulers, the leaders of the world. Susanna was not 
born to lead ; she was a follower for many years. Then came a 
day, still far away, when she found she must cast away the guid- 
ance of others, be true to herself, to her own instincts and nature, or 
fall utterly in her own estimation. 

People like Charlie, all unused to self-control, become immediate- 
ly desperate somehow where calmer natures have not begun to give 
up hope. As he hurried along, more than one passer-by was struck 
by his pale and miserable face ; one young man, something older than 
himself, no other indeed than Max du Parc, on his way to a dining- 
house close by, stopped short as young Bolsover reeled against him, 
and took a step after him thinking he was ill, but Charlie strode 
along the road and disappeared in the crowd. He hardly knew 
where he went nor cared what became of himself ; an excitable, nerv- 
ous boy, he was overpowered by this new feeling, the most unselfish 
he had ever known, by this sense of responsibility, and by the knowl- 
edge that it was not only his own happiness but Tempy’s which was 
at stake. He was completely overmastered for the time by the 
possibility of being irrevocably parted from her. It seemed to him 
like a death-sentence — as if he had seen the colonel put on a black 
cap and heard himself condemned then and there. He found him- 
self at the curate’s door after wandering about the streets for an 
hour. The colonel and his wife at Eiderdown’s Hotel were just sit- 
ting down to their eight o’clock dinner; Mr. White, concluding that 
Charlie was with his uncle, had long since finished his own modest 


PRINCE IIASSAN’S CARPET. 


91 


meal, and had rushed off to a class-meeting. Charlie flung himself 
into the curate’s chair before his hard-working table, and found 
some comfort in pouring out all his bitter disappointment, misery, 
indignation, in a long, endless letter to poor Tempy, written on the 
paper of the Society for the Relief of Distress in London. The sec- 
retary might have found some difficulty in dealing with Charlie’s 
case. When Mr. White got home not long after from his vestry- 
meeting he found the poor boy all changed and disordered, sobbing 
and broken-hearted, with his head upon the table, and the letter ly- 
ing on the desk ready to be sent to post. 

Charlie’s head ached, his hands burned, he had tasted no food all 
day, for he had been too much excited to eat coming up in the train. 
His smart clothes were dirty and crumpled, his black, satin hair was 
rough, his black, velvet eyes were dim and heavy. 

“Poor boy!” said kind Mr. White. “Cheer up, Charlie, don’t 
give way like this. The colonel will relent in time when he sees 
you are in earnest. Come and post your letter to her and get some 
supper,” added the curate, not knowing what other consolation to 
suggest, nor how to provide food for his guest at that time of night. 
His house-keeper was a punctual virgin, who locked up her stores 
and only kept her lamp burning up to a stated hour. “ There’s a 
very good eating-place close by. I shall be glad of some supper 
myself,” Mr. White continued; and he put his arm into Charlie’s 
and brought him out into the street, still dizzy, but also somewhat 
comforted by such kind words and sympathies; and he gratefully 
followed the curate, who, knowing the district, led the way to a cer- 
tain Cafe Fourckette some ten minutes off. 


CHAPTER VI. 

PRINCE HASSAN’S CARPET. 

“ Where, though I, by sour physician 
Am debarred the full fruition 
Of thy favors, I may catch 
Some collateral sweets and snatch 
Sidelong odors that give life .” — C. Lamb. 

There are places in London where without crossing the Channel, 
and by merely walking in at a door-way, you find yourself, as in 
some fairy tale, suddenly whisked off a hundred miles from home 
into some new world and state. The language is different, the faces 


92 


MRS. DYMOND. 


are different, so are the gestures and the very clink of the glasses 
and plates as the waiters come and go. The chickens and vegeta- 
bles, the fishes and sauces all taste of a different tradition. You 
are no longer in England, no longer among English people. The 
guests come walking out of Balzac and George Sand, carrying 
French newspapers in their hands which they buy at a little shop 
close at hand, which also looks as if it had been caught up bodily 
from some Paris street corner. Monsieur Fourchette’s establish- 
ment in Kirk Street is to be known by its trim and well-kept ap- 
pearance. There is a bow- window over the low door-way, and vari- 
ous hospitable inscriptions inviting you to enter. The host himself, 
prosperous and friendly, stands in the door-way and welcomes you. 
The coffee - room has surely been transported, all complete with 
its flies and gilt looking-glasses, from the other side of the water. 
There sits the dame du comptoir established behind her piles of or- 
anges and monster pears; the gilt looking-glasses reflect the flies, 
the people coming and going, and the lovely lady, together with the 
old gray parrot on the counter, perching in his brass cage, and 
winking his wrinkled eye at th^ company. A door at the farther 
end opens and shuts perpetually, revealing a glimpse of a white 
cook over a bright fire, and busy kitchen-maidens hard at work, 
and you recognize the cheerful sing-song refrain, “ Deux pommes 
f rites, un bifteck, en avant la matelotte” etc., etc., varying with the 
hour, the man, and the appetite. There are English people here, 
of course, for the little place is well known and deservedly popular. 
You may find clerks and their wives dining economically. There 
sits an Anglo-Indian, home on furlough, and hospitably entertain- 
ing his family. There sit Popkins and Tomkins giving themselves 
airs at an opposite table. The kind little head-waiter can hardly 
content them or supply their demands. Next to these are two old 
generals from the Senior Sabretash Club sharing a bottle of port; 
but a considerable number of the guests seem to have come from 
across the water with the rest of the establishment. There are soli- 
tary individuals with mustaches out of the Louvre; Henri IV., 
Henri III., Francis I. are all to be seen in turn; some study the carte 
with a lordly air as if it was the Magna Charta, others read their 
newspapers folded into neat squares like napkins, while others again, 
habitues of the place, fat men chiefly, with chains and prosperous 
waistcoats, settle down leisurely, nod to the waiters, and order their 
meal with intelligence and deliberation. There are sometimes strange 
aspects of life to be seen at Fourchette’s establishment, tragedies 
among the champagne bottles, and the comfortable clatter and over- 
flow of good things. Yonder is a woman with death in her face; 


* 

PRINCE HASSAN’S CARPET. 93 

she laughs and quaffs, her cheeks are painted red, but her hollow 
eyes haunt one across the cheerful place. 

Presently enter two male beings with mysterious strides, cloaked, 
and with sombrero hats which they fling aside as they throw them- 
selves down in tragic attitudes at the first vacant table. Fish-salad 
and an omelette seem the results of their sombre consultation. At 
the adjoining table sits a neat little old man, the very contrary to 
the eccentric type, with a blue wandering eye, a high forehead, and 
a well-kept gray beard, who has ordered a cutlet and a cup of coffee, 
and who seems absorbed in a packet of MSS. while he waits for his 
meal. He is soon served, his requirements being small; but the 
next dinner is laid for two, and claims much more of the waiter’s at- 
tention. Glasses of different shapes, bottles of various sizes are al- 
ready set out; the champagne stands ready in its ice. The donor of 
the feast, one of the stout, middle-aged men I have already described, 
sits impatiently awaiting his guest, who arrives at last, coming up 
the crowded room with a quick swinging step, looking about as he 
advances. The guest is Max du Parc, who walks in with a certain 
air inherited from his grandfather, the tanner at Avignon, which 
makes people look up and remember him. He stops short for an 
instant with an exclamation as he threads his way, for he catches 
sight of the quiet old man with the MSS. who has already finished 
his cutlet and is leaving the place. In reply to Max’s greeting the 
old man puts out his hand with a smile, says a few words, and goes 
his way, while Max at last joins the impatient host, whose temper 
is bubbling over like the champagne, and who receives him with a 
“ Late, very late, the wine will be too much iced.” 

“Pardon, sire, pardon,” cries Du Parc, gayly, quoting from some 
opera then in vogue. “ I have been at work until the very last mo- 
ment upon your business; I wanted to bring you my calculations 
completed, and — ” 

“ First of all let us dine,” says the fat man, relenting into a confi- 
dential imperative, as he tucks his napkin neatly into his coat, talk- 
ing his native French meanwhile. “ I have ordered Usque, saumon, 
fricandeau d Voseille, champagne. Help yourself, Monsieur Du 
Parc. ” 

“With pleasure,” says Max, looking round, “especially now that 
M. Caron is gone. He does not approve of champagne.” 

“ Was that Caron — Jules Caron?” interrupts the fat man with 
some interest. “ The impossible philanthropist — I'homme aux mou- 
lins d vent they call him — the vindmill man. Hein?” 

“Yes, that is Jules Caron, ’’said Max, laughing. “I suppose I 
am one of his windmills. He has spent his money and his time 


94 


MRS. DYMOND. 


upon me, and I am afraid he has had but small return as yet for his 
trouble. By-the-way, there is one thing, M. Hase, I want to say to 
you, which I may as well mention at once. The more I go into the 
details of your proposal the more it attracts me, but the more I feel 
convinced that you do not calculate upon the length of time re- 
quired to do any sort of justice to the work. Thank you, no more 
champagne just at present; it is excellent, not over-iced. I am glad 
I have nothing to reproach myself with.” And Max finished his 
glass, looking handsome and confident as usual. 

“ The cooking is good here, the champagne of excellent quality,” 
says M. Hase. He was an editor and a dealer in prints in Paris and 
London. “Now, as to business,” lowering his voice. “ I had con- 
templated publishing three quarto volumes — of which a certain 
number are to be printed in bistre ink on old verge paper — with 
about forty typical illustrations, some etching, some engraving, in 
each ;” and then followed a long technical discussion of proces this, 
proces that — prices, sizes, copper-plates, steel-plates, electro-plates, 
and the possibility of photographic engraving, which had not then 
made the strides it has done of late years; all this enlivened by agree- 
able interludes of fish, flesh, fowl, more champagne, coffee, liqueurs. 

The stout editor was anxious to bring out an illustrated catalogue 
of art treasures in England, which was to take its place with other 
similar works already published by him in Paris. This catalogue 
was to include a critical description of the chief pictures in the 
National Gallery and in certain well-known country-houses, with 
illustrative engravings. The champagne dinner was, perhaps, in- 
tended to make up for a somewhat shabby scale of payment, for 
Max was a well-known and experienced engraver, and an etcher of 
some mark. “I am ready to offer you the preparation of two of 
the volumes, ” said M. Hase, with a flourish, as he insisted on filling 
up the young man’s glass. “You have a delicate hand, a pro- 
nounced taste. If I tell you in confidence that certain persons in 
high quarters at the Tuileries have interested themselves personally 
in the production of these volumes, you will understand that I am 
anxious to see the undertaking carried through well and honorably; 
and I need not add that I know you will do us credit.” 

“ Of course I can do you credit if you make it worth my while,” 
says Du Parc; “ but I must live, I must earn my living. The work 
you suggest represents, at least, two years’ hard labor. Such work 
must be up to a certain standard, and unless it is carefully done it 
is worth nothing at all. I could not live for two years on the sum 
you offer, much less treat myself to such good champagne,” he 
added, smiling. 


PRINCE IIASSAN’S CARPET. 


95 


“But why not have two standards?” said the stout man, more 
and more confidentially. “ Finish up certain favorite pictures like- 
ly to take the public, which could be put forward as examples — say 
the ‘Venus ’ of Correggio, the ‘Ariadne ’ of Titian, etc., etc. As to the 
others, we must not be too exacting or too severe in our criticisms.” 

Here the conversation was interrupted for a moment by some 
new-comers arriving and sitting down at the table which Caron had 
left vacant. One of them called for soda-water and brandy, and 
some cold meat and bread. Max looked round, then he looked 
again. He recognized the pale young man whose face had im- 
pressed him so sadly in the street an hour before. It was a strange 
chance to come across him again, and he was glad to see him with 
a friend, “a respectable reverend,” as Max in his mind called all 
clergymen in black waistcoats. The waiter brought the brandy and 
the soda-water and poured it out, and the new-comer eagerly drained 
the glass; but in a minute he started up, crying out that “the room 
was too hot, too crowded; was there no cooler place to be quiet in?” 

The waiter looked round, and pointed through an open door to 
another room just across the passage. 

“Come along, Mr. White, come along,” cried poor Charlie, ex- 
citedly, rushing to the door, and followed by Mr. White, who took 
up his friend’s hat and stick and hurried after him. 

“In short, make up your mind,” continued the editor, who had 
been talking all this time without noticing Max’s distraction. “There 
are plenty to undertake the work if you will not.” 

“I tell you my feeling frankly,” said Du Parc, again returning to 
his own affairs, “I like your proposal. I have spent the whole day 
in the Gallery, and I am simply lost in admiration at the marvels it 
contains; but,” continues the young man, who has a dogged matter- 
of-fact conviction that a workman is worthy of his hire, “I feel I 
cannot give up so much of my time dt the price you offer, and, as 
for sending out half- finished engravings, it is against my conscience. 
Imperfect etchings are bad enough, where the workman himself un- 
dertakes the responsibility of his misdeeds, but to turn out a bad 
engraving, a scamped mechanical copy, to traduce a Titian or a 
Velasquez, it is like a blasphemy against the spirit of art. Here is 
the list I made out to-day,” he continued, “and the time which each 
picture should take at the rate at which I can work. Look it over, 
and see if any compromise occurs to you. I will call upon you in 
the morning, and, meanwhile, Monsieur Hase, many thanks for your 
excellent hospitality.” And Max gets up, and, to M. Hase’s uncon- 
cealed annoyance, shakes hands warmly, takes up his hat, and wishes 
him good-night. 


7 


96 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“ He is evidently in earnest. That old fanatic Caron has put him 
up to all these absurdities,” thinks the ill-used Hase, while Du Parc, 
unconscious of offence, nods once more and turns away. 

As he turns he sees a letter lying by the chair where Caron had 
been sitting. Max picked it up. It was not, however, as he had 
for a moment feared, part of Caron’s usual correspondence, suggest- 
ing gunpower and plot and police intervention with every dash of 
the pen. This was an envelope belonging to the Society for the 
Organization of Relief, sealed and stamped, and directed, not in 
Caron’s careful caligraphy, but in an unknown, scrawling, English 
handwriting, to “Miss Dymond, Tarndale.” 

A waiter came up as Max stood reading the address. 

“The monsieur who had just gone must have dropped the letter. 
He is in the other room,” said the man, “you will easily find him.” 

There was, alas! no difficulty in finding poor Charlie. He and 
his friend were standing in the door-way, surrounded by a knot of 
wondering people. Mr. White, annoyed, perturbed, was trying to 
lead Charlie away; the poor boy seemed almost in hysterics. The 
brandy had been too much for him ; acting on his excited brain, it 
had completely upset him. He had suddenly burst out laughing 
incoherently and talking nonsense ; he was bewildered, giddy, ir- 
ritated at being followed by waiters, napkins, remarks. ‘ ‘ He has 
been drinking, ” says one of the two generals, who was finishing his 
bottle of port. 

‘ * I seem to know his face, ” says the companion general, staring 
through the open door-way at the showily-dressed, dilapidated-look- 
ing youth. 

“He is ill, he has not been drinking!” cries poor Mr. White, em- 
phatically addressing Max, who came up at that minute, holding up 
the letter. “Oh, thank you! it is ours. Just post it, will you? and 
can you help me to get him but? Come along, Charlie; you will be 
better outside,” said the kind man, still holding him up. Max 
quickly came to their assistance, and between them they got the 
poor fellow safe down the passage out into the street, with its cool 
night sky. “Thank you, I shall take him home,” says the breath- 
less curate, as he beckoned to a passing hansom. “He has been 
upset and in trouble. It is nothing serious. Good-niglit,” cries 
Mr. White, regaining his composure. “ Cabman, drive to 36 Jubal 
Street,” and away rolls the cab with the pastor and the troublesome 
sheep inside. 

As the cab starts off, the generals, having paid their bill, come 
away, lighting their cigars. 

“I remember that young fellow now,” says one of them. “It’s 


monsieur caron’s history of socialism. 


97 4 


young Bolsover; I’ve seen him at his uncle’s in Wimpole Street. 
Are you going on to the Sabretash to-night?” 

Needless to say the generals were both going on to the club, where 
they told the story, and where in due time it reached the colonel’s 
ears. He was less annoyed than usual by his nephew’s escapade. 
He was more and more satisfied in his own mind of the wisdom of 
his own decision, and not sorry that his decision should be so satis- 
factorily confirmed. 


CHAPTER VII. 

MONSIEUR CARON’S HISTORY OF SOCIALISM. 

“ Thanks to the human heart by which we live.” — S. T. Coleridge. 

Meanwhile Max du Parc is walking along the dark streets that 
lead from Soho into Piccadilly. Late as it is, little children are still 
out and about, staring at the gas-lights in the shops, sitting on the 
door-steps. A little girl comes up shyly with flowers to sell, anoth- 
er with matches; a man goes by with a truck, shouting out pine- 
apples in the darkness; squalid people walk up the middle of the 
street boldly, for the night clothes their rags; then, finally, Du Parc 
reaches Piccadilly, and its blaze of lights and rush of flourishing life. 
He passes the corner of Eiderdown’s Hotel, where Susanna dwells. 
The colonel comes out at the swing-door, on his way to the club, 
and Max recognizes him and passes on. He could almost have 
laughed out, suddenly remembering the worthy couple’s pottering 
progress among the pictures that morning. 

There is a certain similarity in the dry, independent humor of 
French people and Scotch people. Max inherited, together with 
his father’s gayety, a certain grim, sarcastic turn from his mother 
and the Forgies, her ancestors. Madame had but little now to re- 
mind her of the Forgies and her early days at Pollok, N.B., except 
indeed the faithful memories she still retained of her youth. She 
had christened her only son Maxwell, after the laird of the village 
where she was born ; for although Madame Du Parc had never seen 
Pollok again, and the good laird was gone to his rest, the Scotch 
lady still looked upon him as a person of European importance. It 
was after over twenty years’ work as a teacher in a provincial school 
that madame, with infinite condescension, had accepted the hand of 
the arithmetic muster of the establishment, on his promotion to a 
small appointment at one of the colleges in Paris. Their united 
savings were judiciously invested in the villa at Neuilly, and it was 


98 


MRS. DYMOND. 


a just cause of satisfaction to Madame Du Parc to reflect that this 
“pretty propriety,” as she called it, would eventually go to her son, 
who also, on his mother’s side, enjoyed the privilege of the ancient 
blood of the Forgies flowing purple in his veins. The late Monsieur 
Du Parc was from the South of France and of very humble extrac- 
tion. His parents had worked in a tanyard at Avignon ; his blood 
was not blue, but of the ordinary color; nevertheless it was to the 
Du Parcs that Max, as they called him, owed his good looks, his 
dark eyes, his frizzed black hair, his well -cut limbs, and marked 
features. The nobler Forgies, as represented by madame his moth- 
er, must have been squat and sandy in appearance ; at the same 
time they were a determined and hard-working race, with a certain 
wholesome tenacity of life and will in which the elder Du Parc had 
certainly been wanting. He had been an honest man, an enthusiast 
in his youth, almost entirely led by one or two of his friends, chief 
among whom had been Monsieur Caron, a paper-manufacturer in 
the neighborhood, with an establishment near Paris, a man of some 
note, a philanthropist and benevolent experimentalist, belonging to 
any number of isms and prisms of fancy. When Du Parc died at 
Paris, not very long after his marriage, this Caron, the owner of the 
paper-mills, who was a generous and exceptional person, came for- 
ward to help the widow with her boy’s education, and later on paid 
the fees for his apprenticeship. Max, by his own wish, was bound 
to an engraver. His patron would have taken him into his busi- 
ness, but Maxwell had set his mind upon art in some shape. His 
mother meanwhile kept house, as we know, took in her boarders, 
gave lessons in English or in French, let the Villa Du Parc furnished 
to families from England and Ireland, to Monsieur Marney, the 
newspaper correspondent, and his family among others, and made 
out a respectable living, showing no lack of energy and shrewdness 
in her arrangements. 

So time went on. Max worked hard, and with credit to himself 
and his patron; he made friends, he grew up tall and active and an- 
imated, he had plenty of spirit and natural gayety and insouciance, 
although sometimes of late when he came away from his long visits 
to his godfather, leaving him absorbed in his dreams of possible 
truth— for his dreams were of the truth— Max had begun to ask 
himself more seriously for what did he himself live? Of what did 
he dream? 

Everybody wishes for happiness of one or another sort for them- 
selves, or for other people— for those they love, or for the human 
race. Caron’s heart ached for the human race; his hopeful nature 
pointed to better things in the future than those which were now 


MONSIEUR CARON’S HISTORY OF SOCIALISM. 99 

past. Max, who was younger and more definite in his desires, 
might have confessed, had you cross-questioned him, that he still 
possessed a personality — still wished for as much happiness as ever 
he could get for himself, for his old mother, for his many friends, 
as well as for his country. And by happiness he certainly meant 
success, power, money, luxury, even that tangible sign of comfort 
and well-being ; for the romance of his nature had been somewhat 
hidden and overshadowed by constant toil, by a certain loneliness 
at home, and by its dry economic aspect of things. Max could not 
help feeling some effort of mind in suiting himself to the worthy 
people among whom he lived. The necessity for living among 
them had induced a certain recklessness of acquiescence which per- 
haps savored of contempt. As he grew older year by year the high- 
bred artistic instincts in him put him into a different relation with 
his natural companions in life; but Caron was the person with 
whom he used to feel most at ease. 

Caron’s influence was very great, and the constant presence of 
that gentle philosophy had ended by strangely impressing the 
young man, who was the son of an optimist be it remembered, al- 
though his mother was a practical woman. The human race is 
farther away at six-and-twenty than at sixty years of age. Madame 
Du Parc was frightened by her son’s enthusiasm. She was grateful 
for Caron’s kindness, she profoundly mistrusted his “ lubies ,” as she 
called them. “Yes, lubies, that is the word. Listen, Max, do not 
let him persuade you to leave your work for the good of any of 
those humanities,” she used to say. “Humanity is nothing at all 
— nothing but lazy fellows who will not work, and are turned off 
from their ateliers .” 

Caron, much as he loved Max, his godson, never attempted to 
persuade him to anything. The old man came and went his own 
way, busy with his own schemes. He was an excellent man of 
business; his manufactory flourished, notwithstanding his experi- 
ments. Sometimes Caron himself would leave the whole thing and 
mysteriously disappear for long periods. He would go abroad, or 
come over to London on errands of his own. To-night, when Max 
met hi m at Fourchette’s, young Max had not even known that Ca- 
ron was in England; but his godfather seemed pleased to see him, 
had given him his address, and told him to come to him in the lodg- 
ing where he was living, over a little toyshop in the Brompton 
Road. 

In his lodging in Brompton, by the light of the green lamp in the 
window, the old man sat, with Max beside him, late into that night, 


100 


MRS. DYMOND. 


bending across bis papers; there were maps of Europe, piles of MSS. 
written in a delicate foreign hand, heaps of letters neatly strapped 
and ticketed. Everything Caron did was orderly, and, if one may 
use the expression, respectful. To him nothing was common, noth- 
ing worthless. He was an amateur, perhaps a dreamer — but there 
was a certain-gentle magnanimity and method in his visions which 
comprehended small things and humble as well as great ones. He 
showed a certain courtesy to the troubles and wants of life w r hich is 
far less commonly met with than the pity they must always inspire. 

Max, looking round the shabby room, could not but contrast it 
with that of his friend the editor’s, where, amid disordered heaps, 
crumpled proofs, and dirty velvet cushions, among gilt confusion 
and statuettes and vulgar ornamentation, Hase, extended in his arm- 
chair, sat puffing out the law. Here, in the shabby, orderly room, 
Caron, with gray hairs, bent at his work, patiently searching for the 
truth, deferring to others even while he was planning their interests. 

What Caron had to propose to Max was also a publication, one 
which he had at heart. A publication for the people, a book to be 
illustrated by Max, with lithographs and wood-blocks and engrav- 
ings and cheap carbon reprints of photographs, on the cheapest paper, 
to be published at the lowest price — a history of Socialism from the 
earliest times, a history explaining the real meaning of the word, of 
that divine theory by which the rich, and the good, and the capable 
w r ere to teach their secrets to the poor, and the dull, and the incapa- 
ble, to show them how to be self-respecting and respected by others, 
industrious, and commeasurably rewarded. The disciples of truth, 
of justice, were to break the bread of spiritual life and dispense it 
to the hungry multitudes, still, alas! fainting in the wilderness. The 
free were to teach freedom, to teach hatred of wrong, and at the 
same, time just rebellion against unjust oppression. It was to be 
the modern version of the miracle of the loaves and fishes. Caron’s 
life and heart were in his book. He had worked at it from time to 
time for years past, writing it down in words, living it in his daily 
life more eloquently than by any words. The chapters were to be- 
gin with the earliest mythologies and dawn of natural science, and 
travelling on from one age to another, from one mind to another, 
from law to law, from experience to experience, to record the prog- 
ress of knowledge, of truth; to point to an ever-continuing faith in 
the human race, an everlasting hope; to preach the true fusion of 
interests human and divine, help and love meeting want and callous 
ignorance, knowledge and justice raising misery and crime. “We 
must not fear,” said Caron, “to preach the salutary transforming ele- 
ments which, alas! with pain and violence at times divide true and 


MONSIEUR CARON’S HISTORY OP SOCIALISM. 101 

natural laws from those social phenomena which are nothing, only- 
illusions of men’s making. Evil is but a force to be lifted to higher 
aims; crush it and imprison it by bonds, and sooner or later these 
will fail to constrain.”. . . 

Max listened in silence as his godfather talked in his low calm 
voice, so gentle, so convinced. All his life he had loved and ad- 
mired the old man, respected his generosity, and trusted it, even 
though he sometimes smiled at his Utopian dreams. Max knew 
that Caron, who had been born rich, had spent more than one fort- 
une in his day upon others; he had helped his generation with a 
liberal hand, and spent hundreds for the good of men who had never 
benefited by his aid. Max was one of the exceptions to the many 
who owed so much to him and who had repaid him with failure 
and lazy ingratitude. This one pupil had honestly and gratefully 
profited by Caron’s past kindness. Du Parc thought, as Caron 
talked on that night, that he could have made a fine drawing of the 
eager, delicate, pale face shining in the light of the lamp and of its 
own hopes. ‘ ‘ This book — this book shall be a Bible to the poor 
man,” cried Caron; “ it shall show him how to hope, how to work, 
how to admire those who have gone before — our high-priests, our 
martyrs, our teachers. How many more are there whose names are 
scarcely known? You, Max the engraver, know poor Meryon’s 
work; he too was one of us. And now,” said Caron, smiling, 
“though I have promised your mother that I would never try to 
tempt you from your career and your own work to help me in mine, 
the moment has come when you can help me materially by your 
work. Leave that man with the champagne and the shabby offers, 
and come and labor for me, and for those who want your help. 
Leave that editor with his low ambitions and vulgar promises. High 
quarters! Is this a time when the Emperor should be amusing him- 
self with picture-books? I mistrust that Hase. He wants your 
name, Max, rather than your talent. But you have a conscience, 
my son, as your father had before you. Have nothing to do with 
that shopkeeper; I have better work for you to do.” 

“You know very well, Papa Caron, that I should always do any 
work you wanted,” said Du Parc, laughing. “ I think you are hard 
on M. Hase. There is no harm in his making a bargain any more 
than in my refusing it. His offer is shabby, but as times go it is not 
so bad; before I accept or reject it, tell me exactly what it is I am 
to do for you.” 

And Caron, who for all his dreams was a clear-headed and ex- 
traordinarily capable man of business, explained at some length and 
with great exactitude what it was he required. 


102 


MBS. DYMOND. 


What he required was enough to take up the young man’s time 
for many months to come, and consequently it was impossible for 
Max to hope to accomplish the work which Hase had proposed to 
him. The drawings from the National Gallery must go to some 
one else; one of the smaller volumes, that of the private collections 
in the west of England, Du Parc hoped he might still execute. 

It was not without a sigh that he rang at the bell and asked to see 
M. Hase the next day, and explained to him the reason of his change 
of mind. In vain Hase augmented his offers. Du Parc would only 
agree to undertake the one volume. “Caron wants his drawings 
done at once. If you have any more work for me later I shall be 
glad of it,” said the young engraver, “but I can’t fail him.” 

“You are wrong, altogether wrong,” cries Hase. “You are en- 
gaging yourself to an old imbecile who has no notion of affairs.” 

Max came back early next day to the toyshop, and for an hour or 
two the master and his pupil sat together with the first few chapters 
and elaborate notes of the book of books spread on the table before 
them, while Caron stood explaining, dilating, planning this illustra- 
tion and that — symbols, compositions that were to take the working- 
man’s fancy, to remain imprinted on his mind, and lead him insensi- 
bly to the truth. One picture most especially of his own composi- 
tion did good old Caron insist upon. There was to be a rising sun ; 
the rays of light were to be shining upon a great globe scattered 
with the wrecks of past ages, fetters lying broken on the ground, 
spears and cannon overturned, and the symbols of war rent asunder, 
the rainbow of peace and universal tranquillity shining in the sky. 

“ Of course I can draw anything you like, but what do you think all 
this will do?” Du Parc said, laughing at last almost against his will. 

“Men will note this. Those who have not patience to read my 
words will see your pictures, and will ask what the meaning of the 
riddle may be. The voice of Truth is not to be silenced, the very 
stones cry out,” said Caron, gravely. “All life is a symbol, a secret 
to be discovered.” 

As he spoke an open carriage, drawn by two livery horses, stopped 
at the door of the shop below, shaking the low room with its sudden 
vibration. In the carriage was seated a beautiful young woman 
dressed in the fashion, and an older man — gray, military, upright — 
by her side. At the lady’s desire the servant jumped down from 
the box and went into the shop, apparently to make some purchase, 
and while the carriage waited, it so chanced that a beggar in many 
rags came up, followed by a shabby woman with a sleeping child 
wrapped in a tattered shawl. The window was open, and the two 
men in the little room which was close over the toyshop could not 


SUSANNA AT HOME. 


10B 


help assisting at the scene. The man shuffled up, and in a whining 
voice began to ask for money to get his tools out of pawn, and some- 
what rudely touched the lady on the shoulder to attract her attention. 

‘ ‘ How dare you ! Be off, you fellow, ” cried the gentleman, start- 
ing from his seat with sudden irascibility. “Take care, or I will 
give you in charge on the spot,” and he called angrily to the coach- 
man to drive on. The coachman whipped his horses, and one of 
the wheels just grazed the beggar’s foot. 

“D — n them!” said the man to the woman, as the two heaps of 
rags stood side by side on the pavement looking after the carriage. 

“I could drive in a carriage too, if I had one,” said the woman, 
with another oath. Then she looked up, for Caron was leaning far 
out of his window, and calling to attract their attention. “Here,” 
he cried, “get your tools out of pledge, my friends; do your own 
work; do not demean yourself to beg of others,” and he threw down 
a couple of half-crowns, which rolled in different directions across 
the pavement. While the beggars leaped to catch them, the occu- 
pants of the carriage returning on its wheels saw the scene. The 
young lady looked up in amazement at the eager gray head and out- 
stretched hand, the gentleman pulled angrily at his mustache, the 
servant came out from the shop with some parcel, the whole equi- 
page rolled away. Du Parc had drawn back into the shade of the 
curtain. “I know that girl,” he said; “she has just married that 
old fellow for his money. She is a friend of my mother’s.” 

“ She has a candid face,” said Caron. “Poor thing, she deserves 
a happier fate.” 


CHAPTER VIII. 

SUSANNA AT HOME. 

“ Sweet day , sweet songs. The golden hours 
Grew brighter for that singing , 

From brook and bird and meadow flowers 
A dearer welcome bringing. 

New light on home seen nature beamed , 

New glory over woman , 

And daily life and duty seemed 
No longer' poor and common. 

I woke to find the simple truth 
Of fact, and feeling better 
Than all the dreams that held my youth 
A still repining debtor .' 1 ' 1 — Whittier. 

People’s lives as they really are and people’3 lives as (for all 
their experience of the past) they imagine they are going to be, are 


104 


MRS. DYMOND. 


very different. And yet reality has often a great deal more spirit 
and invention in it than the most romantic day-dreams— it is less 
gracious, less poseur than one’s own imagination, but at the same 
time it is a great deal more amusing and original. 

When tired Susanna got out of the train and looked about at the 
sweet country place which was henceforth to be her home, she had 
a feeling not unlike that with which one imagines a bird flying into 
the rustling depths of some cool green tree. The Tarndale line 
stops short in a garden shaded by green, where roses are clustering 
in the hedge, beyond which shine the sweet evening gleams of 
Tarndale water. The passengers alight into fragrance among sweet- 
brier and flower-beds, and disperse by degrees : some cross the lake 
in boats, some walk away by the lanes that lead to the village, others 
may be seen disappearing across the moors and uplands, where the 
roads climb to meet the sky. For Susanna an open carriage was 
in waiting, a couple of flags had been set up on two poles, and as 
she alighted she was greeted by a cheer from half a dozen assem- 
bled urchins led by a stout, foreign-looking gentleman, w T ho came 
forward, heartily grasped her hand, and finally saluted her on the 
cheek with a flourish of his hat. Mr. Bolsover always looked ex- 
actly the same, but his clothes were new for this occasion ; he wore 
a dark green velvet hunting suit, with a horn slung across his shoul- 
ders, knickerbockers, green stockings, buckled shoes. He had as- 
sumed a general air of gala and cheerful jauntiness, to which every 
possible adornment of button and shirt-stud added brilliance. 

“Welcome, my dear Susanna, welcome. Here you are at last 
among us. Here is my wife come to meet you. You will find the 
others at the Place all expectant! Get in, my dear, get in,” and her 
new brother-in-law, replacing his hat carefully on one side of his 
head, gallantly leads Susanna by the elbow and hoists her up the 
steps of the barouche, on the back seat of which sits an elderty, 
bony lady in glowering satin, who shuts her parasol, bends forward, 
and receives Susy with a kiss not unlike a postman’s rap at the 
door. “Caroline insisted on coming in Tempy’s place,” continues 
Mr. Bolsover. “ Tempy, slightly indisposed, is waiting at the Place; 
get in, John, get in; Car, as you know, prefers the back seat.” 

It was one of Mrs. Bolsover’s many peculiarities always to sit with 
her back to the horses, and the colonel and Susy being placed in 
the seat of honor, Mr. Bolsover leaps in himself, banging the door 
several times in succession. The porters and the children give a 
second straggling cheer, the carriage rolls away by the shady road 
skirting the lake, which is all rippling, and edged with reeds and 
birds, and many starts and plashes among the fringing grasses. 


SUSANNA AT HOME. 


105 


Susy, sliy, wondering, confused, sat silent, smoothing out her folds 
and wraps, feeling herself raked by Mrs. Bolsover’s two steady, 
scrutinizing eyes. 

Aunt Car was accustomed to Aunt Fanny’s gorgeous elegancies, 
to her fifty years; she cast a disapproving glance at childish Susy’s 
soft flounces and delicate clouds and frills, they seemed affected 
and airified to the elder lady. 

“I remember you at Vivian Castle,” says she in her deepest ac- 
cents; “you were there with your grandfather. I hope you will 
not be dull down here with all of us. I suppose you have always 
been used to live with old people?” 

“Oh yes, always,” says Susy, rather confused. The colonel 
feels vaguely disconcerted by his sister’s greeting, but Mr. Bolsover 
lias begun immediately pointing out the remarkable objects along 
the road — the barn, and the hay-cocks, and the five-barred gate, and 
other subjects of common interest. Mr. Fox’s new hotel by the 
lake, the Fletcher’s cottage upon the hill-side, the gates of Bolsover 
Park with the big trees leading up to the house. It was all new to 
Susy, but every branch and twig and stone seemed to be a part of 
the elder people’s lives; and as they rolled along by the scenes of 
his youth, the colonel forgot his years and his passing irritation in 
the silent welcome of the old haunts ; lie could not but contrast 
this home-coming, with his happiness by his side, with all the gloom 
and forlornness of the past ten years of his life. 

It never occurred to Colonel Dymond that everybody else was 
not as happy as he now found himself. Now they, too, would 
know her, thought the simple-minded gentleman, and to know her 
was to love her. His heart was full of gratitude and tenderness; 
he thought of the green pastures and still waters of the psalm. 
Surely King David might have had Tarndale in his mind when he 
wrote his psalm. 

Colonel Dymond, so methodical, so deliberate in his ways, so scru- 
pulous in his attire, so hasty at times, as precise people are apt to 
be, was a true-hearted and single-minded man, strung up just now 
to some higher mood than was his wont. He had determined when 
he married to make others as happy as he was himself. When he 
thought of his sad and silent home, now once more brightened to 
life by that sweet and conciliatory presence, it seemed to him impos- 
sible that those who loved him should not rejoice for him and for 
themselves as well. 

The colonel took it for granted that Aunt Fanny would be of the 
same mind as the rest of them, according a benediction all the more 
valued because it was not lightly bestowed. He pictured to himself 


106 


MRS. DYMOND, 


Tcmpy, warm-hearted, welcoming; Fanny with accomplished arms 
out-stretched — a prop, a guide, an invaluable adviser. Car might 
make a few good - humored jokes, perhaps, but he could trust to 
Car’s kind heart, very soon she would learn to prize his Susy. And 
then one cannot wonder that John Dymond looked kindly and ad- 
miringly at the sweet figure by his side; he could not but note its 
grace and gentle presence, and the sober girlish expectancy of Sus- 
anna’s eyes, as he thought with a proud thankfulness of the lovely 
soul he had discovered in its fair and gentle shrine. 

John Dymond felt a better and more important person somehow 
for his charming young wife, who trusted him, and’ looked up to 
him — and who shall blame him if he also felt it was not without 
reason that she did so? He had been kind to Susanna and to her 
mother; he was prepared to do more if need be; and of this need 
be the colonel had little doubt in his mind. Mikey and Denny's 
education must be attended to without delay. Bohemia is certainly 
not the place in which to study the rules of the Latin grammar, 
and the Marney’s were, it must be confessed, for the present at least, 
dwellers in Bohemia. 

As the colonel sat quietly in his place driving along the lane, his 
mind travelled right away, as minds are apt to do, to a Winchester 
ball some twenty -five years before, and to the days in which he 
had waltzed with pretty Mary Holcombe, Susy’s mother, less beauti- 
ful even then, however, than her daughter was now. All the past 
seemed like a far-away burst of tears and laughter to the grim, senti- 
mental old fellow, only he told himself that now at sixty the pres- 
ent was best. 

That candid, grave face, those sweet, innocent eyes, that rare smile 
which delighted him when it came, all seemed like a rainbow after 
rain, a token of happiness after long trouble and difficulty. The 
carriage turns in at two wide gates; Susy’s heart begins to beat. 

The colonel looks out eagerly. 

“Do you see Tempy?” says he. “ Is that Jo?” 

A dog barks, the butler and the footman came to the door, the 
carriage stops, the butler advances, the footman retreats, the dog 
wags its tail and gambols up and licks the colonel’s boots. 

“ Where is Miss Tempy, where is Mr. Jo? Down, Zillah — down!” 
says the colonel, impatiently. 

“Miss Dymond is up-stairs; you will find Miss Bolsover in the 
drawing-room, sir,” says the butler. “She has just ordered tea. 
Mr. Jo was in the ’all a minute ago.” 

The colonel looks somewhat disappointed, the footman throws 
wide open the drawing-room door, and as the wedding-party enters 


SUSANNA AT HOME. 


107 


the room, followed by the dog, a quivering pile rises from the sofa 
where it had been heaped, a trophy of flounced muslin, of ribbons, 
of yellow ringlets and glittering ornaments. It advances, serious, 
awful, with an artificial smile, and does not speak. 

“Well, Fanny, here we are,” says Uncle Bolsover, with a hasty 
attempt at a rally. “ Train late, of course. Better late than nev- 
er — eh, John? I mean, of course, as regards the railway,” says the 
squire, suddenly confused. 

“This was good of you, Fanny, coming over to make us wel- 
come,” says the colonel, wincing, but following his brother-in-law’s 
lead. “ Here she is come home to us,” and he turned to Susy, who 
was standing rather frightened in the middle of the room. 

“How do you do?” says Miss Bolsover, advancing with a glitter- 
ing kiss for the bride; then turning to the colonel: “I hope you 
will excuse poor Tempy’s absence, John. She has been entirely up- 
set by her letters, by all that has occurred, or she would have met 
you. I have advised her to remain in her room for the present.” 
Then, changing with alarming politeness, “Are you tired after your 
journey, Mrs. Dymond? The servants are bringing the tea; they 
have been hard at work, poor things, preparing. I hope you will 
find everything comfortable, but of course we none of us knew 
what you would wish or what you were accustomed to.” 

“I — I am accustomed to nothing at all,” said Susy, blushing up 
and pretending to laugh, but somehow she felt more inclined to cry. 
This terrible, ceremonious Aunt Fanny, and her cheap scents and 
furbelows and attentions ; Tempy’s absence — Tempy, her own friend 
and companion, whose welcome she had counted upon, who had 
written so warmly, who now seemed to turn against her; Mrs. Bol- 
sover still staring her out of her countenance — it was all like a 
frightening dream. 

“Is Tempy up-stairs?” said Susy, looking imploringly from the 
grim Mrs. Bolsover on the sofa to the still more alarmingly affable 
Aunt Fanny. “ Is she really ill? May I go to her?” 

“Thank you,” said Aunt Fanny, pearling her words, “you are 
most kind; but for the present she is best alone. I am taking 
her back to Bolsover with me for a few hours’ entire quiet; it is 
better for her to be with those she is accustomed to for the pres- 
ent.” 

“But she knows me quite well, indeed she does,” cried Susy, 
longing to escape, to see Tempy, to know what was amiss, to “ have 
it out,” as girls say. 

Aunt Fanny looked at the colonel. 

“Is it your wish, John, that the child should be further upset? 


108 


MBS. DYMOND. 


We have only been able to calm her with the greatest difficulty. 
She will see you, of course. But give her time.” 

The colonel, feeble-minded man that he was, turned in bewildered 
consternation— turned from his wife, of whom he was not afraid, to 
his sister-in-law, of whom he teas afraid. 

“Perhaps, my dear Susy, you had better wait a little,” the colo- 
nel faltered. “As our good sister suggests, I’ll go up and see her 
directly,” and he walked straight out of the room. 

Susy flushed crimson, and looked from one to the other; she too 
was upset, she too was overwrought; she felt a strange, heavy pain 
in her heart. Was this her own home, her home-coming? was this 
her new life? Were these the people whom she had determined to 
love with all her heart? To love Aunt Fanny! It seemed about 
as easy to love a muslin toilet-table — pin-cushions, scent-bottles, and 
all. What did it all mean? why these looks, these reserves? Was 
it her coming that had brought such trouble? Oh! what business, 
then, had she there ? Even John had turned away. Oh, it was 
cruel of him. What had she done ! what had she done ! She 
looked appealingly at Mr. Bolsover, as if he could explain it all. 
As she looked across the room with a sinking heart, she seemed to 
see spread out as a picture before her the many years to come, Mrs. 
Bolsover forever sitting on the sofa with her fixed stare, forever 
serious, forever disapproving; Miss Bolsover, so big, so pink, with 
her false curls and plaits and heavy playfulness, arranging, mar- 
shalling, ordering every one about. Was this her home ? The 
over-crowded room, with its stuffed birds and gilt frames and stag- 
horns and sprawling legs, seemed to oppress Susy like some night- 
mare. 

Even the kind old squire, in his fancy dress and Vandyke atti- 
tudes, had got upon Susy’s nerves; she scarcely did justice to the 
friendliness with- which now he came up, trying to make things 
more cheerful. 

“ I see you grasp the situation,” said he, jauntily. “We are all 
used to do as we are told here — eh, Fanny? — all used to it, and we 
have all found by long experience it is the best thing we can do,” 
he hastily added, seeing a pink eye flashing round upon him. 

Perhaps Miss Bolsover felt that a crisis had arisen; perhaps she 
had suddenly realized that a young republic was threatening where 
she had ruled so long. Her plans were deeply laid, and, simple as * 
they seemed, the events had been arranged with an elaborate care, 
which was almost defeated, however, by a very simple move on 
Susy’s part; for suddenly in the door-way she sees her husband 
leading Tempy and followed by Jo, who had been up-stairs all 


SUSANNA AT HOME. 


109 


this time vainly endeavoring to persuade his sister to come down. 
But was this Tempy who had come down, and who stood motion- 
less while Jo strode up to meet his young step-mother with a shy 
hut friendly greeting? Was this Tempy, with downcast looks and 
swollen eyes, gloomy, passive, with a dull expression like that of a 
person half - bewildered and asleep? Her dress was tumbled, her 
looks were changed, even her curly red hair looked limp and 
straight. 

“Tempy, darling — Tempy, w r hat is it? Is it because I have 
come?” cried Susy, running to her with out-stretched arms, with a 
sudden rush of natural emotion, so warm, so true, so different from 
all the hysterical agitation that it carried everything before it ; 
Susy’s whole heart was in her kind face. ‘ ‘ I have been so longing 
to see you,” she cried. “Your aunt says you are going back to 
Bolsover Hall. Don’t, please — don’t go away now that I have 
come.” 

Tempy looked softer for a moment, let herself be kissed, but only 
sighed and did not speak. As Susanna released her the colonel 
came up. 

“I must add my own request, my dear child, to Susanna’s. 
Notwithstanding your good aunt’s wishes, I confess your departure 
would wound me deeply,” said the colonel, plucking up some spirit 
at last. 

“We will send her back to you in very good time, John,” inter- 
poses Aunt Fanny, blandly, taking the girl’s hand in hers. “ Tem- 
py only needs a few hours’ quiet at the hall with us, and she will 
come home braced and prepared to do her duty and to accept your 
will— and Mrs. Dymond’s,” adds Miss Bolsover, with an odd into- 
nation. “You, of course, are able to command, but if Tempy takes 
my advice she will do what is not only for her own and present 
happiness but for that of us all.” 

“I don’t know what the deuce you mean,” says the colonel, tes- 
tily, and suddenly losing his temper. 

No wonder poor John Dymond found himself bewildered. 
There was Fanny defying him, Caroline frowning, Susy, whom 
he had seen for all these days, so bright, so radiantly happy, so 
easily pleased, now standing pale, silent, and repulsed. Bolsover 
alone came up to the colonel’s expectations; you could always count 
upon Bolsover. Hitherto John Dymond thought he could have 
counted on them all. He could hardly believe that this strange, 
new, terrible Fanny Bolsover, so elaborate and frigid, was the ideal 
of goodness and amiability which they had all looked up to for 
years. And Tempy— was this Ms Tempy, so sullen, so changed? 


110 


MRS. DYMOND. 


Nor did the colonel find himself much more at his ease when he 
presently met the intelligent look of his sister, Mrs. Bolsover, 

“I knew all along how it would be,” said Aunt Car, who had, 
among other habits, that inconvenient trick of occasionally speaking 
her thoughts aloud. 

“Knew what, my dear Car?” said Mr. Bolsover, by way of turn- 
ing off the conversation agreeably; “that we should all be here — a 
family party, happily united at last?” 

“ I little thought how it would all be,” said the colonel. “ Tem- 
py, you must make your own arrangements with your aunts, and by 
all means attend to their wishes. But, remember, this is your natu- 
ral home;” and the colonel, turning very red, and feeling his temper 
beyond his control, marched out of the room, leaving Tempy still 
standing as if she were dazed. 

Susy ran up again and put her arms out; Tempy looked at her 
with strange eyes. “ Tell papa I will come back,” she said; “tell 
him it is no want of love.” Her lips quivered; she did not finish 
her sentence. 

“Come, my child, come,” cries Aunt Fanny, suddenly, extremely 
animated, and swooping down from the other end of the room. 
“Car, do not keep her standing; Frederick, you can walk.” And 
before any one could speak another word, or interfere in any way, 
Miss Bolsover throws a shawl over Tempy’s head, motions Mrs. Bol- 
sover to the door, and in another minute has urged, borne, carried 
her niece by main will out of the room. In the hall Miss Bolsover’s 
maid was waiting ready with a bag, the butler was holding open the 
carriage door, Miss Fanny, with something of her brother’s agility, 
thrusts Mrs. Bolsover into her usual place on the back seat, hurries 
passive Tempy up with the assistance of the maid, and when the 
colonel, after a few minutes’ struggle with his temper, came back 
from the garden, he found the room cleared, doors open, the com- 
pany gone; Susy had fled up-stairs; only Frederick Bolsover re- 
mained for a minute, disconsolately standing in the passage, talking 
in a low voice to Jo. 

“Fanny is too abrupt — too abrupt,” says Uncle Bol. “Means 
well, of course. Poor Tempy looks wretchedly out of sorts. These 
family entanglements are always trying, very trying. Charlie is ex- 
pected back, I believe; there was a telegram to Fanny this morning.” 

Tempy’s looks had startled her father even more than they did her 
uncle. He was deeply hurt by her departure; he had trusted in her 
sympathy. The prosaic old fellow felt as if he had had a shock, as 
if all the quiet foundations of his life had been shaken. ‘ He nodded 
to his brother-in-law and son, but he went straight into his study, 


josselin’s step-mother. 


Ill 


and began tearing open tbe pile of bills and letters upon the table. 
But his hand trembled so much that he threw the whole parcel down 
upon the table in a heap. Then he crossed the room to the window, 
which he threw wide open. As he came back to the table, he saw 
his own figure reflected in the glass against 'the light, and he turned 
away his head. He was troubled— agitated. Could it be that per- 
haps Tempy was right in the main — that she had a right to resent 
his marriage ? He had never imagined anything like this. The poor 
colonel’s head sank upon his breast. Just then the door opened and 
Jo came straggling in. 

“Don’t you want lights or anything, papa?” said the young fel- 
low, with a touch of real sympathy in his voice. The father did not 
answer, but held out his hand without looking up. “ Tempy is ter- 
ribly cut up about Charlie Bolsover,” said Jo, shyly. “ You know 
he is very fond of her, papa, and they have been constantly together 
all this time. But these love-affairs never last,” says the experi- 
enced youth, “ and I’m sure Aunt Fanny had been giving her chloral. 
Tempy hardly knew what she was about.” 

“Love-affairs!” says the father, looking up, extraordinarily re- 
lieved. “ Is that the meaning of it all? Chloral ! How very wrong 
and imprudent of your aunt. Confound Charlie Bolsover! So he’s 
at the bottom of it all, is he? He deserves to be shot!” cries the 
colonel. 


CHAPTER IX. 
josselin’s step-mother. 

“ It was a valley filled with sweetest sounds , 

A languid music haunted everywhere. . . . 

From rustling corn and song-birds calling clear , 

Down sloping uplands which some wood surrounds , 

With tinkling rills just heard, but not too near; 

And low of cattle on the distant plain, 

And peal of far-off bells now caught , then lost again.” 

T. Miller. 

It was not in Susanna’s nature to dwell upon vague and melan- 
choly suggestions. With the morning came a hopeful aspect of 
things, a burst of sunshine and youthful spirits. Crowbeck, not- 
withstanding the heavy cornices and hangings, began to look more 
home-like. The new mistress of the Place was down betimes; her 
presence seemed already to brighten everything. She went out into 
the garden for a few minutes before breakfast; as she stood on the 
lawn in her fresh morning - dress the sunshine set her hair aflame, 

8 


112 


MRS. DYMOND. 


The hills across the water seemed to be also touched with some 
gentle mood of rainbow light. The green slopes beyond the lake 
were soft, silent as the sward on which she stood. George Tyson 
and his father came striding up from the boat-house across the 
dewy fields, trudging upon daisy -flowers with their heavy hob- 
nailed boots; the little calves ran to meet them with playful starts 
and caresses. Jock, the sheep-dog, leaped a fence and darted off after 
some imaginary sheep. Then came Jo, advancing from beyond the 
trees, with his rod and with fish in his basket. 

“ Good-morning,” said Jo. “Look here, I caught all these up by 
my uncle’s boat-house this morning. Tempy was out; she is all 
right again. Aunt Fanny is always making scares about nothing 
at all.” 

Susy longed to ask more about Tempy and Aunt Fanny and life 
at Bolsover, but she found it difficult to frame her questions. Jo 
also seemed anxious to explain and yet reluctant to speak; he, too, 
had something on his mind. 

“I am afraid your sister is very unhappy,” said Susanna at last. 

“They are both very unhappy, ” said Jo; then, with a heroic ef- 
fort, for he did not like to hurt his pretty, shy step-mother, “ I think,” 
said Jo, turning red and looking into his basket, “ if you had known 
more of Charlie you would have advised my father differently.” 

“I!” said Susy. “I never — ” then she stopped short. She was 
a new-made wife and not yet used to her position ; was it for her to 
disclaim all responsibility in her husband’s actions? What did wives 
do under such circumstances? Susy, in her perplexity, fell back 
upon another question. “What has your cousin done to trouble 
your father so much?” she asked, also with eyes cast down. 

“He has been a fool,” said Jo. “He has spent his own money, 
and he once got me to back a lame horse— papa never could forgive 
that. I think this is about the worst, except that row at Oxford, 
when Charlie was caught and the others got off ; and— and I’m afraid 
there was something else in London,” added Jo. “Papa tells me 
he was seen drinking; but Charlie was so cut up, poor fellow, he 
hardly knew what he was about. ” 

“One can’t wonder at your father’s anxiety,” said Mrs. Dymond, 
gravely. “ I saw your cousin for a moment in London. I felt very 
sorry for him.” 

Somehow, as Jo talked on, little by little Susy began to find her 
sympathies enlisted on Charlie’s side. “Poor fellow!” she said, 
pityingly, forgetting her own determination to blame. 

“There goes Hicks; papa has done his business,” cries Josselin, 
abruptly disappearing with his fish as the bailiff issued from the 


JOSSELm’S STEP-MOTHER. 


118 


study window. The colonel followed, and seeing his wife, came 
up to her with a smile. 

“Mr. Hicks, I want to introduce you to my wife,” said Colonel 
Dymond, proudly ; and Mr. Hicks, a brown, tattered man, who 
seemed bailiff to many winds and storms and moors, made a clum- 
sy, smiling salutation to the smiling, graceful young lady. 

The new family breakfasted as they had dined, in a triangle at 
the round table. 

Susy poured out tea from behind the old-fashioned silver urn. 
The colonel looked round, satisfied, dissatisfied. 

“The place seems empty without Tempy,”said he. “You saw 
her this morning, Jo; when is your sister coming back?” 

Jo didn’t answer; he was not at ease with his father. 

“I am afraid, from what Jo tells me, that she is very unhappy 
indeed,” said Susy, blushing up; “that is why she keeps away. 
She cannot bear to — to differ from you. John, don’t you think — 
do you really think — there is no hope at all for them? Is it possi- 
ble,” she continued, bravely, “that we may have done your nephew 
injustice?” 

“My dear Susanna, my dear woman,” said the colonel, gravely, 
putting down his paper and looking fixedly at her, “pray do not let 
me hear you speak in this way again. Josselin,” with a stern glance 
at his son, “ has no doubt influenced you. Do you suppose he cares 
more than I do for his sister’s ultimate happiness? It is no kindness 
on his part or on yours to interfere — to urge me to consent to Tem- 
py’s life-long misery. My duty as a father, and as head of the fam- 
ily, is to decide upon what seems to me best and right for my chil- 
dren and for their good. Do you know that this fellow is a gambler, 
a drunkard? He was seen drunk in a public eating-house in Lon- 
don the very night he had asked me for my child in marriage. 
Tempy’s husband must be a good, true man, one she can trust, an 
upright man, who will love her and make her happy and respected. 
You, Susy, know but too well the suffering that a man with a low 
standard of honor can inflict upon a high-minded lady.” (Susy 
turned crimson; she could not answer.) “We all have to face the 
truth,” said the colonel. “Iam sorry to speak of my own nephew 
so harshly, but I look upon*Charles as an adventurer and not unin- 
fluenced by mercenary motives. Why should I refuse my consent 
if I trusted him, or believed him in the least worthy of Tempy?” 

“Papa,” cried Jo, hotly, “indeed you are unjust to poor Charlie. 
He is desperately in love; he has been silly; lie has no interested 
motives,” 


114 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“I beg you will drop the subject, Jo,” said the colonel. “ Tern- 
py is rich, as girls go. Even without your share of my property, 
the interest of your poor mother’s money now amounts to a consid- 
erable sum, and, by-the-way, ” said the colonel, glad to change the 
subject, “I shall have to get you to help me, Jo, as soon as you are 
of age, to make a provision for Susy here, who hasn’t any expecta- 
tions or settlements,” said the colonel, smiling and softening, “and 
who would be poorly left if anything happened to me.” The colo- 
nel, as elderly people are apt to do, rather enjoyed discussing such 
eventualities; neither Susy nor Jo found any pleasure in the conver- 
sation. 

Jo, with an awkward grunt, got up and left the room. And Susy 
meanwhile sat silent, looking at the walls of the room, at the Land- 
seer stags, the showy Italian daubs, the print of the passing oLjlie 
Reform Bill, with all our present Nestors and Ulysseses as spruce 
young men in strapped trousers; then she slowly turned her eyes 
upon her husband, as he stood with his back to the chimney, erect 
and martial even in retreat. Colonel Dymond was making believe 
to read the paper which had just come, in reality greatly agitated 
though he looked so calm. 

He was one of those people who, having once made up their 
minds, never see any great reasons to alter them unless some stronger 
will enforces the change. When Susy looked up with tears in her 
eyes, all troubled by his severe tone, her sweet, anxious, shy look 
seemed to absolve him, and it won his forgiveness ; only Susy could 
not quite forgive herself. 

John Dymond was a weak man, kind-hearted, hot-headed, honor- 
able, and both obstinate and credulous, and created to be ruled. 
For some years after his first wife’s death he had constituted Aunt 
Fanny into a sort of directress — her unhesitating assumption suited 
some want in his nature at the time — perhaps of late he had changed 
in this respect. It most certainly still suited Miss Bolsover that 
people should do as she told them. She should have been abbess 
of a monastery, prime - minister of some kingdom where women 
govern the State. She had not imagination enough to correct the 
imperiousness of her nature, whereas Susanna had too much to al- 
low freedom to her actions, and so to-day again she gave in with a 
sigh; the power of sulking persistence tvhich some people can wield 
was not hers. That gift of adaptiveness which belonged to Susanna 
Dymond led her to acquiesce in the conclusions of those she loved. 

The colonel went over to Bolsover in the -course of the morning; 
Susy begged to be left at home. She was busy unpacking, settling 


JOSSELESf’S STEP-MOTHER. 


115 


down, exploring her domain. She had a grand bedroom, with cor- 
nices, red damask curtains, and solemn mahogany furniture to 
match; there were prints of the Duke and Duchess of Kent on the 
wall, and of the Queen as a pretty little girl with a frill and a coral 
necklace. The young mistress of Crowbeck looked about, wander- 
ing along the passages of her new kingdom followed by an obsequi- 
ous house-maid, who led her from room to room. Then she came 
back to her own pretty boudoir, where her prints and her various 
possessions were lying ready to be set out: among them was that 
old drawing of Naomi and Ruth from Madame Du Parc’s; how 
vividly she could see it all, and the studio and the neglected garden, 
so unlike the trim lawns at Crowbeck Place. 

Josselin came up to her later in the day as she stood complacent- 
ly among her girlish treasures. He gave a quick, asking look. 
Susy shook her head — “ Your father is gone over to the Hall to see 
Tempy — he ordered his horse just now. He must know best,” she 
repeated, with some effort; “ we must trust to him, Jo.” 

“We can’t help ourselves,” said Josselin. Then he added, rather 
gruffly, “Would you care to come out with me, Mrs. Dyinond?” 
(He had elected to call -her Mrs. Dymond.) “I shall have to be 
back at my tutor’s to-morrow, but I should like to show you about 
the Place to-day. Tempy told me she might be over in Tarn- 
dale — I could row you across.” As he spoke some breeze came into 
the room, the whole lake seemed to uprise with an inviting ripple, 
and through the open window the distant shriek of the railway 
reached them from the station in the garden of sweetbrier. 

“That is the afternoon up -train,” said Jo, in a satisfied tone. 
“Charlie is gone back in it. I did not like to tell papa, it would 
have vexed him too much. I thought how it was when Tempy 
went off to the Hall last night. . . . She knew he would be coming. ” 

“Oh, how wrong! how could she!” cried Susy. “Oh, Josselin, 
why didn’t you warn us?” 

“ He is gone again,” said Jo, doggedly; “ it was only to say good- 
bye, poor fellow.” And, as the young step-mother, troubled, be- 
wildered, began to exclaim, “Don’t you tell papa,” her step-son in- 
terrupted. “ You only know it because I thought I could trust you. 
You will get me into no end of trouble, and poor Tempy has enough 
to bear as it is. Let Aunt Fanny tell papa. She sent for Charlie, 
not I.” 

This was true enough, but Susanna felt somehow as if the whole 
thing was confused and wrong, and jarring upon her sense of right 
and family honor. “Listen,” she said, with some spirit; “if ever 
Charlie comes here again I shall tell your father. At present I do 


116 


MRS. DYMOND. 


not feel as if I could interfere. But even at tlie risk of getting into 
trouble, Jo, we cannot all be living in bis bouse, acting parts and 
deceiving liim. It is not for Tempy’s happiness or yours or mine.” 

“I know that,” said the young man, impatiently. “ Come along; 
I will show you the way to the boat-house. ” 


CHAPTER X. 

THREE ON A HILL- SIDE. 

“ True that we must live alone , 

Dwell with pale dejections ; 

True that we must often moan 
Over crushed affections. 

Let in the light , the holy light, 

Brother, fear it never, 

Darkness smiles, and wrong grows right; 

Let in light forever .' 1 ' 1 — Anon. 

Meanwhile poor Tempy sits high up on the mountain-side, on a 
spur of the ‘‘Old Man” that overhangs the village, and stares at 
the distant line of rail in the valley by which Charlie is travelling 
away. The little brook ripples by her with many sweet, contentful 
sounds and chords, then a fresh breeze stirs the leaves of the oak- 
trees round about, and many noises come to her with the rising 
breeze — the clang of the blacksmith’s forge from the village below, 
and the cheerful voices of the school-children striking like a sort of 
sunshine from beyond the wood; a cock sets the wild echoes flying, 
then a cow passes lowing across the road from one sloping pasture 
to another, followed by its calf, hurrying into green safety. The 
soft full wind of autumn seems suddenly to gain in life and will; it 
blows up the ascent. Tempy, as she sits there, listless and depress- 
ed, can see the village below still bathed in sunshine, and the team 
of horses winding round the hill, and the water of the lake lying 
bright and restful, and a boat zigzagging across from the Place. 
The boat disappears behind an elder-bush, and Tempy, high perched, 
looking down upon her own short life, as it were, goes back to that 
day which will never be over any more, when she, too, rowed in 
the boat with Charlie — that happy, wondrous day, to be so soon 
clouded and followed by parting. But she had seen him once more, 
with his pale, changed looks and faithful, tender vows and protests. 

Meanwhile the boat has crossed the lake, the sculls dip the placid 
surface of the water, the boat’s head thuds against the end of a long 


THREE ON A HILL-SEDE. 


117 


wharf. • Jo liooks the rusty chain to a convenient block of wood, 
then he gallantly hands out his white cambric step-mother, who has 
been sitting in the bow, dreadfully frightened, but prepared to en- 
joy herself nevertheless. Susy still practised that sensible, youthful 
privilege of enjoying the present whenever the sun shone upon it, 
and leaving the shadowy ghosts and omens of apprehension to take 
care of themselves. Jo led the way across the flat and by the little 
village built upon the stream. The place seemed deserted ; the men 
were at work in the fields and in the mines, the women were busy 
in-doors. They met no one but Tim and Tom Barrow, who both 
stared and courtesied, as they had been taught to do by their 
mother. 

“Have you seen Miss Tetnpy, Tim?” says Josselin. 

“ I-sS-err-a-gwoan-oop-t’-Auld-Mann, 1 ’ says little Tim, all in one 
word, ‘ * aafter-Mr.-Charles-gotten-into-t’-Barrow-train. ” 

“ Can you understand him?” Susy asked, laughing. 

“ Yes,” says Jo. “He says she is gone on.” 

Susy trustfully followed her new step-son, holding up her white 
dress. Their way lay through a farm-yard at the end of the village, 
where cocks and hens were pecking, and some lazy, comfortable 
cows were bending their meek horns over a trough supplied by the 
running stream. Beyond the farm was a little climbing wood of 
ferns and ling — a wonder of delicate woodland — all in motion, all in 
life. 

“ What a lovely green place!” cries breathless Susy. “ Jo, please, 
don’t go quite so quickly. Is this the foot of the mountain?” 

“ Why, you are no good at all,” says Jo, looking round. “ Tem- 
py can go twice as quick.” 

“lam very sorry,” says Mrs. Dymond, laughing, and coming out 
of the shadow of the wood, and finding herself in the dazzling bright- 
ness of the mountain-side. 

The crest of the Tarndale “Old Man” towered overhead, the 
shadows of the clouds were crawling along its rocks and heathery 
flanks, the foreground opened out shining; beautiful bowlders of 
purple rock were lying on the smooth turf, the stream hurried by, 
the air became keener and more keen, the country changed as they 
climbed, the nearer hills seemed to shift their place, to melt into new 
shapes; under their feet sparkled ling, flowers, specks — delicate 
points of color. Susanna’s cheeks glowed. There was something 
exhilarating in the sense of the quiet moor all round about, of the 
wide fresh air, and the racing clouds overhead. 

“ There she is,” said Jo, suddenly. “I thought we should come 
upon her.” 


118 


MRS. DYMOND. 


And so it happened that Tempy, looking down from -a rock 
above, sees the heads of two figures against the sky coming straight 
upon her from the valley. She cannot escape. 

Why will not they leave her alone? All she wants is to he alone, 
to live over poor Charlie’s parting looks and words an hour ago. 
How can they ask her to he smiling and complacent and indiffer- 
ent, they who are all happy and contented and together, while she 
is lonely and forlorn? and then as Tempy looks down defiantly she 
sees them close both beside her. There is Jo with his friendly, 
home-like looks, and Susy, silent, shy, with those appealing glances 
which Tempy scarcely knows how to escape. 

The girl flushed up and turned away; she would not meet Susy’s 
eyes. 

“Here you are!” says Jo, cheerfully. “ I thought we should find 
you here.” 

* ‘ What have you come after me for?” says the girl, at bay. ‘ ‘ Why 
won’t you leave me? I came here to be alone, Jo. I am too un- 
happy to be able to pretend, that is why I keep away,” says Tempy, 
trembling excessively. “Why do you bring Susanna? If it had 
not been for her, my father would never have interfered — never, 
never. Oh, it is cruel — cruel!” Then she turned desperately upon 
Susy herself. “Tell papa he can prevent our marriage, but what 
I am, what I feel, belongs to me and to Charlie — not to you or 
to him,” cries the girl, something in her old natural voice and man- 
ner. 

After all, it was a comfort to her to speak— to complain, to up- 
braid, to be angry. 

As for Susy, she flushed up and sighed, she did not know how to 
answer her step-daughter’s passionate appeal. Poor little Tempy! 

“ Oh, Susy,” Tempy continued/' I thought you would have helped 
us — I thought ” — she burst into tears. 

“You are all wrong, you know,” said Jo/quietly. “Mrs. Dy- 
mond did her very best to help you. Don’t cry, Tempy.” 

How different words are out-of-doors on a mountain-side to words 
shaped by walls and spoken behind doors! Jo’s matter-of-fact, Su- 
sanna’s simple eloquence of looks, of pitiful feeling, touched Tempy 
more than any elaborate words, to which, indeed, she could scarcely 
have listened at first. 

“Your father would consent if only he thought it right,” Susan- 
na was saying. “ He knows better than you or I what is best. Ah, 
you don’t know,” she continued, speaking not without that personal 
feeling which gives so much meaning to the most commonplace ex- 
pressions, “you must never, never know, Tempy, what it is to be 


THREE ON A HILL-SIDE. 


119 


linked with a man for whom you are ashamed, whose life is one hu- 
miliation. I have lived this life,” said Susy, turning very pale. “I 
know what your father dreads for you, and that even his dread is 
not so terrible as the reality. I bore it a little while; my mother 
has lived it ever since I can remember,” her voice faltered. Tempy 
looked hard at Susy, and now it was Susy who began to cry. 

“You don’t understand, any of you — nobody can understand any- 
thing for anybody else,” Tempy said, relenting; “ but I should like 
to be with papa again, only promise me to say nothing hard of Char- 
lie— not a word— I cannot bear it, I will not bear it.” 

“ Oh, Tempy, that you may be sure of,” cried Susy, eagerly, “ only 
come!” and she took the girl’s not unwilling hand. 

The three walked back in silence, Jo jogging ahead with his hands 
in his pockets, not absolutely satisfied with this compromise, and 
sorely tempted to whistle, Susanna and her step-daughter, hand-in- 
hand, following silent, but reconciled in that odd, intangible way in 
which people sometimes meet in spirit after a parting perhaps as si- 
lent and unexplained as the meeting. 

Some great events had been going on meanwhile overhead. The 
clouds were astir beyond the crests of the hills ; vapors were rising 
from behind vapors ; strange, shrouded figures were drifting and fly- 
ing across* the heavens, steeds and warriors followed by long pro- 
cessions of streaming, fantastic forms ; while the southern hills were 
lying in a golden stillness, the head of the valley was purple, black 
— angry. The summit of the mountain was half hidden in myste- 
rious rolling clouds. Sometimes from one break and another break 
in the rolling clouds yellow streams of gold seemed battling with 
the vapors; you might almost imagine the wonderful, radiant figure 
of the law-giver coming down out of the glorious haze. 

“We had better make haste,” said Jo; “it looks like a storm,” 
and he trudged faster and faster. The cows were whisking their 
tails and crowding together in the meadow as they crossed by a stile 
and a short cut back to the farm again. The opposite side of the 
lake above Crowbeck was calm and bright, with the sky showing 
through soft mists, midday shining through silver. They come 
round by the village with its straggling lodging-houses, built of 
country stone, with slated roofs from the quarries. It is civilized 
life again after the solemn mountain-side. 

Doctor Jeffries dashes by in his gig. “You must make haste,” 
he cries, flourishing his whip; “the storm is coming.” 

Then they meet George Tyson from the Place, coming with bread 
and provisions in a basket. 

“ Come down and help to shove off the boat, George,” says Tern- 


120 


MRS. DYMOND. 


py, who, as usual, gives her orders with great authority, and so they 
come again to the sandy shore. 

“Ye’ll ha’e nobbut time to get hoam before the storm,” says 
George, pushing them off with a mighty heave. 

It took all Jo’s strength to get the boat across, for the breeze was 
freshening every moment. 

The colonel was waiting anxiously at the other end. He helped 
out his wife with anxious care. “Jo, you should have come home 
by the road,” he said, severely. He held Tempy’s hand for a min- 
ute as he helped her out. “ I wanted you home, my dear,” he said. 

“Papa, I am glad to come, but I shall never change to Charlie,” 
said Tempy, looking hard at her father. 

The colonel’s face grew set and black — “ I am sorry to hear it,” 
he answered, and he dropped her hand, and turned abruptly away 
and walked ahead with Susy. The storm broke before they reached 
the house. 

After her first warm greeting the girl seemed to draw back. She 
did not sulk, she did not refuse to join them, but every day seemed 
to divide her more and more from her father and step-mother. She 
used to go for long walks across the moors, and come back tired 
and pale and silent. She took to sewing, a thing she had never 
cared for in her life, and she would sit stitching all the evening, si- 
lent, gloomy, no longer monopolizing the talk with cheerful vehe- 
mence, scarcely hearing what was said. Miss Bolsover used to 
come in sometimes, and then Tempy would brighten up a little. 
One day Susy found them sitting hand-in-hand by the fire. Tempy 
seemed to be in tears, Miss' Bolsover was wiping them with her lace 
pocket-handkerchief. Aunt Fanny looked up with her usual flutter 
as Busy came in. 

“You mustn’t mind her liking to tell pie her little troubles,” she 
said. 

“ Tempy knows well enough I don’t,” said Susy, with a sigh. 

“ She must come and stay at the Hall. We know how to cheer 
her up,” Aunt Fanny continued, playfully. 

Susy looked at her. Miss Bolsover turned away with a faint gig- 
gle. Generous eyes have looks at times which malicious orbs can- 
not always meet. 


DAY BY DAY. 


121 


CHAPTER XI. 

DAY BY DAY. 

“ I vowed that I would dedicate my hours 
To thee and thine — have I not kept the vow ?' 1 — Shelley. 

There are bits of life which seem like a macadamized road. 
The wheels of fortune roll on, carrying you passively away from 
all that you have done, felt, said, perhaps for years past ; fate bears 
you on without any effort of your own ; you need no longer strug- 
gle, the road travels into new regions, time passes and the hours 
strike on, and new feelings and new unconceived phases while you 
rest passively with your companions. Perhaps, meanwhile, some of 
us have left the romantic passes and horizons of youth behind, 
reaching the wider and more fertile plains of middle life. 

Susy, who was young still, embraced the calm of middle age with 
something like passion. By degrees she took the present in, and 
realized little by little where she was, who she was, how things 
were, in what relations the people among whom her lot was cast all 
stood to one another. She realized her husband’s tender pride and 
affection for herself, and his anxious love for his children ; realized 
the deep pain and bewilderment which any estrangement between 
Crowbeck Place and Bolsover Hall would be to him. Susy no 
longer wondered, as she used to do in Paris, that the kind old colo- 
nel had not become more intimate with his son and daughter; he 
loved them and they loved him, but too many rules and trivial 
punctualities seemed to stand in the way of their ease. It is as lit- 
tle possible to be. quite natural with a person who is nervously 
glancing at the clock to see if it is time to do something else, as it is 
to write unreservedly to a friend who dockets and dates your let- 
ters for future publication, or to talk openly to a superior whom 
you must not contradict. For Susy there was rest in these minor 
details after her chaotic experience; the order, the tranquillity of all 
this suited her, and she tried more and more to suit herself to her 
husband’s ways and habits, to show by her life the warm and lov- 
ing gratitude she felt in her heart. When Susanna Dymond first 
came to Tarndale as a bride she was not very different from what 
Mr. Bolsover remembered her at Vivian Castle; she was tall and 


122 


MRS. DYMOND. 


harmonious in her movements, specially when she was at her ease, 
her face was of changing color, her eyes were clear like two mount- 
ain pools, her brown hair was thick and soft — the tint of the bracken 
in autumn, as the squire once gallantly said, with all the lights in it. 
There were two Susannas, some people used to think, one young 
and girlish, with a sweet voice and smile, with a glad and ready re- 
sponse for those who loved her ; the other Susanna was Mrs. Dy- 
mond, stately, reserved, unexceptionable, but scarcely charming any 
more. 

As the days passed on the neighbors began to drive up by basket- 
fuls and carriagefuls to make the acquaintance of the new lady of 
Crowbeck. Some came in boats, some on foot, some on horseback, 
to pay their respects to the bride. They would be ushered into the 
drawing-room, with the glimpse of the lake without, with the stuffed 
birds and gorgeous chintzes within — those remaining tokens of 
Aunt Fanny’s Oriental fancy. Not unfrequently the colonel would 
come in from his study, looking pleased and ready to receive his 
friends’ congratulations, “brushed up” was the verdict passed 
upon the colonel. Tempy, who kept out of the way, was pro- 
nounced “dreadfully changed,” and finally the bride herself was to 
be commented on as she sat there, placid, reserved, in smartest Paris 
fashions. 

Susy puzzled other people besides her neighbors, who hardly 
knew as yet what to think of her. To please her husband, who 
liked his wife to hold her own, to be respected as well as admired, 
she tried to cultivate a stiff and measured manner, something in the 
style of her own newly -bought silks and laces; she had lost her 
girlish look of wondering confidence and simplicity, nobody to see 
her would imagine that she had ever lived in anything but county 
society of the most orthodox description. Alone with Jo and 
Tempy, or walking in sunshine by the green shore of the lake, she 
would forget this lay figure made up of manners and fashions, but 
at the first sound of wheels in the distance all our Cinderella’s grace 
of youth and gayety vanished, all her bright gala looks were gone ; 
there she stood in milliner’s rags and elaborate tatters, prim and 
scared and blurred by the decorum which oppressed her. 

At Paris Colonel Dymond had laid his old habits and associations 
aside, but here, in his old surroundings, with Miss Fanny’s pink eye 
to mark anything new or amiss, his idiosyncrasies returned with a 
renewed force. Meanwhile, however wanting Susanna might seem 
to Miss Bolsover’s ideas, to Miss Trindle’s, the vicar’s daughter, or to 
Mrs. Jeffries’, the doctor’s wife, Mrs. Dymond appeared the very per- 
sonification of calm and successful prosperity. She was handsome 


DAY BY DAY. 


128 


without expression, well dressed without much taste. She had 
been used to consult the colonel latterly about her dress, finding 
her own fancies for the picturesque not approved. Her clothes 
were expensive, her shoes were French, her gloves were always but- 
toned, her manners were well-made county manners, composed and 
somewhat starched. This was the Susanna of the neighbors, and 
many a girl envied her; but this was not the home Susanna, who, 
little by little, day by day, and hour after hour, melted and warmed 
and thawed the hearts of the two young people who had met her 
with such scrutinizing looks and divided minds. How often Susy 
in her early married days had suffered from those glances. Jo had 
relented from the first moment he saw her standing shyly in the 
drawing-room, but Tempy used to have strange returns of suspi- 
cion. And whenever Susy by chance met one of Tempy’s doubtful, 
scrutinizing looks she would shrink up suddenly into herself. Or 
if Mrs. Bolsover came in severe and incoherent, or, worse still, if it 
was Miss Bolsover sneering and civil v then the new-married wife 
would turn into a sort of statue. Susanna used to feel the cold 
strike upon her heart, her blood seemed to creep more and more 
slowly in her veins, and her voice died away. 

She rarely said much in company, for she had lived among talka- 
tive people all her life, but with Miss Bolsover present she became 
utterly silent. Her nature was not an outcoming one, but very deep 
in its secret fidelity and conviction. She was not timid, and yet 
she was apt to be too easily impressed and frightened by the minor 
details of life. She did not hold her own when other more self- 
important people were ready to thrust themselves into her rightful 
place. She could not ignore the opposition which from the very 
first had met her, but she never spoke of it. She had a curious, in- 
stinctive sense of the rights of those she lived with. She dreaded 
to jar upon them, to be the cause of trouble or discussion. And 
little by little she got into a habit of always looking to her husband 
for a signal. He led the way, he started the conversation, he in- 
vited the people who came to the house — dowagers from neighbor- 
ing dower-houses, well-to-do magnates, respectable rectors and rec- 
toresses, colonels and generals of his own standing. With the colo- 
ners old companions Susy felt more at her ease than with any one 
else. These comrades in arms were invariably charmed with Mrs. 
Dymond’s grace and gentle temper; no wonder they lost their hearts 
to the beautiful young creature, so sweet to look upon, so modest 
and ready to listen to their martial prose. 

“You should just hear her talking about the Punjab,” says 
Tempy, in amazement, to kef brother. 


124 


MRS. DYM0ND. 


Tempy used to wonder more and more about Susy. Slie seemed 
no longer able to understand her. But perhaps the truth was that 
Miss Tempy had never much troubled herself to understand her at 
all hitherto. She used to speculate about Susy now with an odd 
mixture of affection, of pride, and jealous irritation. “Was she 
really happy? did Susy really care for her father?” 

“What does it matter?” Jo answers, impatiently. “You and 
Aunt Fanny are always for skinning a person alive, and I hate talk- 
ing about people I’m fond of.” 

As for the colonel, he was delighted with everything Susy did, 
whether she spoke to others or held her peace. Because he loved 
her so well, because he spent his money so freely upon her, because 
she was so good a wife, he took it for granted she was a happy 
one; and indeed Susy never seemed otherwise. She appeared free 
to do as she liked in most things, or to submit with good-will to her 
husband and her sisters-in-law. When these ladies contradicted or 
utterly ignored her, she would smile good-humoredly; and yet in 
her, heart she now and then had experienced a strange feeling that 
she scarcely realized, something tired, desperate, sudden, unreason- 
able, almost wicked — the feeling she thought must go, and she 
would forget it for a time, and then suddenly there it was again. 

“ What is it, my dear?, is the room too hot?” said the colonel one 
day, seeing her start up. Miss Bolsover was explaining some details 
she wished altered in the arrangements at the Place; his back had 
been turned, and he had not noticed Susy’s growing pallor. 

“ Nothing, nothing,” says Susy, and she got up, but as she passed 
him took his hand in hers and kissed it, and went out of the room. 

She hurried up-stairs into her own room, she sank into the big 
chair, she burst into incoherent tears. Then when she had gulped 
them down she went to the basin and poured water to wash her 
troubles away — her troubles — her ingratitude! John who has been 
so kind, John so generous and good, was this how she, his wife, 
should requite him for his endless kindness and benefits? By 
secret rebellion, unkindness, opposition ? Ah no, never, never, 
thought the girl. And the young wife, whose only wish was to 
spare her faithful, chivalrous old colonel, did that which perhaps 
must have hurt and wounded him niost of all had he known it. 
She was not insincere, but she was not outspoken; she did not say 
all she felt, she put a force and a constraint upon herself, crushed 
her own natural instincts, lived as she thought he expected her to 
live, was silent where she could not agree, obliged herself to think 
as he did, and suffered under this mental suicide. 

There is something to me almost disloyal in some of the sacrifices 


DAY DY DAY. 


125 


which are daily made by some persons for others who would not 
willingly inflict one moment’s pang upon any human creature, how 
much less doom those dearest to them to the heavy load of enforced 
submission, to a long life’s deadening repression. 

‘ ‘ I for one don’t pretend to know what Susanna means or wish- 
es,” says Aunt Fanny. 

But although Miss Bolsover did not understand, my heroine in 
the course of her life changed not, and therefore often changed; she 
was loyal, and therefore she was faithless; loyal in her affection, 
faithless in her adherence to the creeds of those she loved. When 
she was young she believed and she doubted; when she was older 
she doubted less, but then she also believed less fervently; but in 
one thing at least she was constant, and that was in her loving fidel- 
ity to those whose interests were in her keeping. 

People did not always do her justice. Max du Parc was one of 
these. During the following spring, to please Mrs. Marney, who 
had written over on the subject, Colonel Dymoud (not over gra- 
ciously it must be confessed) invited Du Parc to spend a night at 
Crowbeck. The colonel’s invitation reached the young man at the 
Tarndale Inn, where he was staying. He had come there to make 
an etching of a Turner in the collection at Friar’s Tarndale, one of 
those pictures which M. Hase had been anxious to include in his 
publication. Max, who had been hard at work for Caron all the 
winter, and obliged to give up the volumes containing the London 
galleries, had still found time to bring out a smaller collection of 
drawings from country-houses, and had come to Tarndale for a few 
days. He felt some curiosity as to Susy’s English home, and did 
not like to pain her good mother by refusing the Dymonds’ some- 
what stinted hospitality; so he wrote a note of dry acceptance in 
return for the colonel’s, and walked over to Crowbeck after his 
day’s work, carrying his bag for the night. The party from the 
Hall had driven over for the occasion, and passed him on the way. 

Susy looked forward with some pleasure to entertaining her 
French guest, to showing him his own etchings hanging up in her 
room, to hearing of all the events at the villa, and of Madame Du 
Parc, and Mile. Fayard, and all the rest; but the guest, though 
brought to Crowbeck, would not talk, he would not be entertained; 
he came silent, observant, constrained, and alarming; he answered, 
indeed, when spoken to, but he never looked interested, nor would 
he relax enough to smile, except, indeed, when Miss Bolsover gra- 
ciously and volubly conversed in French with him after dinner. 
Du Parc left early next morning; Susanna was vaguely disappoint- 
ed, and a little hurt; his shyness had made her shy; she had scarce- 


126 


MRS. DYMOND. 


ly asked any of the questions she had meant to ask, she had not 
shown him the drawings she had wanted to show him, she had felt 
some curious reserve and disapprobation in his manner which had 
perplexed her. 

“It is no use trying to entertain these foreign artists and fel- 
lows,” said the colonel, after Max’s departure. “ They want their 
pipes and their liberty ; they are quite out of place in a lady’s 
drawing-room over here.” 

“M. Du Parc certainly did not seem to like being here,” said 
Susy, smiling. 

“For my part I like artists, ” says Miss Bolsover; “and we got 
on delightfully. I asked him to teach me argot ; he looked so 
amused.” 

“Well, Max!” Mrs. Marney was saying, as she sat under the aca- 
cia-tree in the little front garden at Neuilly (where the sun was 
shining so brightly, though its rays were still shrouded in' mist by 
the waters of Tarndale), ‘ ‘ tell me all about it. Have you seen my 
Susy? Is the colonel very proud of her? How did she look? Is 
she very grand? Is she changed? Wasn’t she glad to see an old 
friend?” 

“Yes,” said Du Parc, doubtfully, and lighting a cigar as he 
spoke. “ She was very polite and hospitable (puff); she is looking 
forward to your visit (puff, puff) ; she told me to say so ; she sent 
amities to my mother (puff) ; she is changed — she is handsomer 
than ever; she is richly dressed. Her life seems to be everything 
that is most respectable and tiresome; she gave me a shake hands; 
that young miss, her daughter, stared at me as if I was a stuffed 
animal. The son was away preparing for his college. There was 
an aunt, a beguine lady who frightened me horribly; an uncle in 
top-boots, a little man to make you laugh. There was a second 
aunt, a red old lady, who was kind enough to interest herself in 
me, to take me for a walk in the park. She was even amiable 
enough to make some sentimental conversation. They are extraor- 
dinary, those English. Ah ! it is not life among those respectables ! 
it is a funeral ceremony always going on. I give you my word,” 
says Max, taking his cigar out of his mouth and staring thought- 
fully at Mrs. Marney ’s knitting, “it seemed to me as if I was a 
corpse laid out in that drawing-room, as if all the rest were mourn- 
ers who came and stood round about. Madame Dymond, too, 
seemed to me only half alive, and laid out in elegant cere-clothes.” 

“Oh, Max, you are too bad!” cries his mother, in English. “How 
can you talk in that hogly way, making peine to Mrs. Marney?” 


A WELCOME. 


127 


“No, I don’t think it at all nice of you, M. Max!” says Mrs. 
Marney, reproachfully. 

“You are quite right, and I am not nice, and I don’t deserve 
half your kindness,” cried the young man, penitently, taking his 
old friend’s hand and gallantly kissing it. 

“Ah, Max would have liked to be befor’and,” said his mother, 
laughing. “ Susanna is a sweet creature. We must find such an- 
other, one day, for my son. ” 

Max looked black, and walked away into his studio. 


CHAPTER XII. 

A WELCOME. 

“ Along with that uprising dew 
Tears glistened in my eyes , tho' few , 

To hail a dawning quite as new 
To me as time .” — T. Hood. 

Before Susy had been a year at Tarndale she had the happi- 
ness of welcoming her mother to her new home. The colonel kept 
his promise, and not only the little boys, but Mrs. Marney came 
over for the summer holidays. Needless to say that it was all the 
colonel’s doing, and that it was not without some previous corre- 
spondence with Mr. Marney, who, in return for a check duly re- 
ceived, sent off a model and irreproachable letter to announce his 
family’s departure {via Havre, not by Boulogne, as the liberal colo- 
nel had arranged for), and also to consult witfi the colonel about 
the little boys’ future education. 

Mr. Marney wrote that Dermy had a fancy, so his mother de- 
clared at least, for being a doctor. “Charterhouse had been sug- 
gested,” says the correspondent, in his free, dashing handwriting. 
“I do not know if you have heard of my late appointment to the 
Daily Velocipede, and are aware that although I am not immediately 
able, my dear colonel, to repay you in coin of the realm for that 
part of your infinite kindness to me and mine which can be repaid 
by money, yet my prospects are so good and so immediate (the pro- 
prietors of my newspaper have written to me lately in very encour- 
aging terms) that I feel I am now justified in giving my boys a gen- 
tleman’s education, and in asking you to spare no expense (in ac- 
cordance with my means) for any arrangements you may think fit 
to make for their welfare. It is everything for them both to get a 
good start in life. I trust entirely to your judgment and expe- 

9 


128 


MRS. DYMOND. 


rience. I have been too long a vagabond and absentee myself to be 
au fait with the present requirements. I know it is the fashion to 
rail against the old-fashioned standard of education, which is cer- 
tainly not without objections, and yet to speak frankly I must con- 
fess to you that, much abused as the time -honored classics have 
been, I have found my own smattering of school-lore stand me in 
good stead in my somewhat adventurous career. I am daily ex- 
pecting a liberal remittance from my proprietors, and when it ar- 
rives I will immediately post you a check for any extra expense 
you may have incurred. As for the better part of your help, its 
chivalrous kindness and generous friendship, that can never be 
repaid, not even by the grateful and life-long affection of mine and 
me. 

“ Do not hesitate to keep Polly as long as your wife may require 
her mother’s presence. I am used to shift for myself, and though 
the place looks lonely without the old hen and her chicks, it is 
perhaps all the better for my work and for me to be thrown on 
my own resources. A family life, as you yourself must have often 
found when engaged on ” (here Mr. Marney, rather at a loss for a 
word, had erased “military” and written “serious ”) “matters, is a 
precious but a most distracting privilege. May your own and Su- 
sanna’s present and future prospects continue to afford you all that 
even your kind heart should require for its complete satisfaction. 
And above all remember that you are to keep my wife as long as you 
need her. I shall not run over. With all my regard and admira- 
tion for your country and its institutions I do not wish for the 
present to set foot on English soil. I can also understand my poor 
wife’s dislike to her native land after all that we endured while we 
still lived in London. When I compare this cheerful place, the 
brightness of the atmosphere, and the cheapness of provisions, with 
the many difficulties we have had to struggle through before we 
came, I feel how wisely for ourselves we acted in turning our back 
upon the ‘ould counthree.’ The one doubt we have ever felt was 
on the boys’ account, and this doubt your most wise and opportune 
help has now happily solved. Believe me, my dear colonel, with 
deep and lasting obligation, 

“Yours most faithfully, 

“Michael Marney.” 

Mr. Marney’s letters need not be quoted at length. The colonel 
used to read them with some interest and a good deal of perplexity, 
date them gravely, and put them away in a packet. Susy shook 
her head when her husband once offered to show them to her. One 


A WELCOME. 


129 


day, not very long afterwards, with a burst of tears, she found them 
in a drawer, and she threw the whole heap into the fire. 

Towards the end of June Mrs. Marney, smiling and excited, in 
her French bonnet and French cut clothes, and the little boys, with 
their close-cropped heads, arrived and settled down into the spare 
rooms at Crowbeck. Jo took the little boys under his friendly wing, 
and treated them to smiling earth, to fresh air and pure water, and 
fire too — for a little rabbit-shooting diversified their fishing expedi- 
tions, so did long walks across the moors. The two little fellows 
trudged after their guide prouder and happier than they had ever 
been in all their life before. Susy was very grateful to Josselin for 
his kindness. Tempy was absorbed, the Marneys’ coming made no 
difference to her one way or the other. If the colonel had not been 
so preoccupied about his wife he must have noticed how ill Tempy 
was looking. But almost directly after Mrs. Marney’s arrival anoth- 
er personage of even greater importance appeared upon the scene, 
and a little baby-girl lay in Susy’s happy arms. 

This little daughter’s birth brought much quiet happiness to the 
Place. The colonel used to come up and stand by the pink satin 
cradle with something dim in his steel-gray eyes. ‘ ‘ Is Baby awake ?” 
says Mrs. Bolsover one day, following close upon her brother and 
speaking in her deepest voice. “ What a lovely child, John. What 
shall you call her?” 

“ I — I don’t know,” says the colonel; “ Frances, Caroline are pleas- 
ing names.” 

‘ ‘ I should call her ‘ little bright eyes, ’ ” says Mrs. Bolsover, severe- 
ly. “ Look here, Fanny ” (to Miss Bolsover, who had also come up); 
“just look at this dear infant; is it not a lovely child?” 

“Excuse me, my dear Car, you know I’m an old maid and no 
judge of babies,” says Miss Bolsover, airily. “It seems a nice little 
creature. Here, here, hi, hi,” and she began rattling her chatelaine 
in the child’s eyes, woke it up and made it cry, to the no small in- 
dignation of the nurse. ‘ ‘ A pretty little thing, but not good-tem- 
pered, and dreadfully delicate,” was Miss Bolsover ’s description of 
her infant niece. The report came round to poor Susy after a time, 
and might have frightened her if her mother had not been there to 
re-assure her. Mrs. Bolsover’s speech also came round in that mys- 
terious way in which so many insignificant things drift by degrees. 
Susy and her mother between them determined that the baby should 
be called bright eyes. Euphrasia was to be the little daughter’s 
name. 

How happy Susy was all this time; the day seemed too short to 
love her baby, she grudged going to sleep for fear she should dream 


180 


MRS. DYMOND. 


of other things. It was no less a joy to her mother to see Susy so 
happy, though poor Mrs. Marney herself was far from happy ; she 
was unsettled, she was anxious, she was longing to be at home once 
more. Susy felt it somehow, and dreaded each day to hear her 
mother say she was going, and anxiously avoided the subject lest 
her fears should be confirmed. Madame used to write from time to 
time, and her letters seemed to excite and disturb her friend. ‘ ‘ I 
am not easy about Mick, colonel,” Mrs. Marney would say in confi- 
dence to her son-in-law; “he is not himself when I am away.” 

Susanr^ suffered for her mother silently, guessing at her anxiety, 
but not liking to ask many questions. She was also vexed by Miss 
Bolsover’s treatment of Mrs. Marney, which was patronizing and ir- 
ritating to an unbearable degree, Susy thought, on the few occasions 
when she happened to see them together. Mrs. Marney, in her sin- 
gle-hearted preoccupation, seemed absolutely unconscious. Al- 
ready in those days rumors of war and trouble were arising; they 
had reached Tarndale, and filled Mrs. Marney with alarm. But 
what did emperors, county families, plenipotentiaries, Bismarck, 
Moltke, generals, marshals matter — what were they all to her com- 
pared to one curl of her Mick’s auburn hair? “It is not so much 
his profession that terrifies me, it’s his Irish blood, Susy, which leads 
him into trouble! You English people don’t understand what it is 
to have hot blood boiling in your veins. Your colonel is not like 
my husband. I must get home, Susy dear, now that I have seen 
you with your darling babe in your arms. ” 

Was it possible that Mrs. Marney was more aware of Miss Bolso- 
ver’s rudeness than she chose to acknowledge? One day, before 
Susanna was down, when several of the neighbors were present, 
calling on the colonel, Susanna’s mother, in her black dress, had 
come by chance into the room, followed by the two noisy little boys, 
and carrying that little sleepy bundle of a Phraisie in her arms; 
Miss Bolsover, irritated by her presence, and the baby’s flannels, and 
the comfortable untidiness of the whole proceeding, began making 
conversation, politely inquiring after Susy, and asking Mrs. Marney 
whether she and her children were contemplating spending the 
whole summer at Crow beck. “But it must be a great pleasure to 
my brother having your boys for so long,” says Miss Bolsover. 

“It has been a joy to me to be here, and to welcome my sweet 
little grandchild,” said Mrs. Marney, hugging the baby quite natu- 
rally; “ and if it had not been for Susy wanting me, and for all the 
kindness I’ve met here from the colonel, I should never have kept 
away from Paris so long. A woman with a home and a husband 
should be at home, Miss Bolsover; it is only single ladies like you 


A WELCOME. 


131 


that can settle down in other people’s houses. I am thankful to see 
my child happily established in such a warm nest of her own, but, 
dearly as I love her, I want to get back. Somehow I seem to know 
by myself how sorely my poor Mick is wanting me,” she said, with 
a tender ring in her voice. The whole sympathy of the room was 
with the warm-hearted woman. Miss Bolsover was nowhere. The 
little boys, with their French-cropped heads, suddenly flung their 
arms round their mother’s neck, calling out that she must not go — 
that papa must come and live here too. The colonel might have 
preferred less noise and demonstration in the presence of callers. 
“Now, then, Michael and Dermot, run away, there’s good boy6,” 
said he; “and, my dear Mrs. Marney, I think we will ring for the 
nurse and send baby up-stairs to her mamma. The help and com- 
fort you have been to us all this time I leave to your own kind nat- 
ure to divine.” 

As soon as Susy was strong and well again, and the boys had 
been received at their school, Mrs. Marney departed ; nothing could 
keep her, and the good colonel went up to London to see her safely 
off, with her French box in the guard’s van, and her friendly, hand- 
some face at the carriage window, smiling and tearful. Poor Mary 
Marney, what a good soul it is! he thought, as he stood on the plat- 
form. What an extraordinary and most touching infatuation for 
that husband of hers ! 

“Good-bye; God bless you, colonel. Write and tell me all about 
the dear babe,” says Mrs. Marney, leaning eagerly forward from the 
carriage. 

The colonel was already looking at his watch ; he was longing to 
get home. He had only come up from a sense of duty, and because 
he had some reason to fear that Mrs. Marney had received some 
slights from other quarters for which he was anxious to make 
amends. He looked at his watch as the train puffed off with his 
wife’s mother; at his Bradshaw as soon as her white handkerchief 
had waved away out of the station. He found that by taking the 
express he might get home that night by midnight instead of wait- 
ing till the morning. He was too old to wait away from those he 
loved, he told himself ; he longed to see Susy again with little Phrai- 
sie in her arms. The colonel called a hansom then and there, dined 
hurriedly at the hotel, picked up his bag, and drove off to Euston 
Square station. 


132 


MRS. DYMOND. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

ABOUT PHRAISIE. 

“ A tiny now , ere long she'll please 
To totter at my parent-knees , 

And crow and try to chatter ; 

And soon she'll come to fair white frocks. 

And frisk about in shoes and socks , 

Her totter changed to patter. 

And soon she'll play, ay soon enough , 

At cowslip ball and blindman's buff ; 

And some day we shall find her 
Grow weary of her toys indeed, 

She'll fling them all aside to heed 
A footstep close behind her!" 

Locker’s London Lyrics. 

The sound of children’s footsteps pattering about the house is 
perhaps the sweetest music that has ever fallen on listening mothers’ 
ears, or that their hearts have ever kept time to. When Susanna 
Dymond first heard her little PhTaisie’s merry heels stumping over- 
head, her first waking hours seemed to brim over with happiness. 
The thought of her little one seemed to shine in her face, to beam 
from her eyes — some indescribable new charm was hers. Small and 
young as Phraisie was, she seemed to fill the whole big house at 
Crowbeck from her early morning to her no less early evening ; for 
Phraisie set with the sun in winter, and went to roost in summer- 
time with her favorite cocks and hens. She was a friendly, generous, 
companionable little soul. As soon as Phraisie was able to walk at 
all, it was her pleasure to trot up to the people she loved with little 
presents of her own contriving, bits of string, precious crusts, por- 
tions of her toys, broken off for the purposes of her generosity. 

“Da,” says she, stuffing a doll’s leg into her big sister’s hand. 

Phraisie was rather bored when poor Tempy suddenly caught her 
up, hugged her passionately, kissed her. 

“ A-da-da-dad ; no, no,” cries little sister, objecting, and tearing 
out a handful of Tempy’s red locks in self-defence. 

Fayfay, as Phraisie called herself, was certainly one of the round 
pegs for which the round holes are waiting in the world — no hard 


ABOUT PHRAISIE. 


133 


sides, no square, ill-fitting corners, but kind, soft nests, already lined 
with love and welcome. Miss Phraisie, perching on her mother’s 
knee, took it all as a matter of course. How could she, little baby 
that she was, guess at the tender wild love which throbbed in her 
mother’s heart, at the wonder and delight her father felt as he gazed 
at his pretty shrine of home and motherhood, at the sweet wife, the 
round, happy, baby face, and the little legs and arms struggling 
with jolly exuberance; and even old and wise and experienced as 
we are, and babies no longer, I wonder which of us could count up 
all the love which has been ours, all the fond looks, the tender, in- 
nocent pride which has been given to us. So Phraisie went her way 
unembarrassed by false humility. 

Tempy was devoted to the child, and seemed to find her best 
companionship with that small and cheerful person. She used to 
tarry Fayfay about in her arms all over the place, up into her room, 
out into the garden again, from the garden to the pig-sty, from that 
fascinating spot to the poultry yard, where the chickens were pick- 
eting round about the chalets where their Cochin China mothers 
were confined, or to the stables where the puppies were squeaking 
in the straw. It would be hard to say, when the stable door opened 
letting in the light and the crumbs of cake and Miss Phraisie and 
her capers, whether the puppies or Phraisie most enjoyed each 
other’s society; these youthful denizens of Crowbeck seemed made 
for one another. She was not very unlike a little curly puppy her^ 
self in her ways, confident, droll, eager, expecting the whole world, 
from her father downward, to have nothing better to do than to play 
with her, to hide behind doors and curtains, to go down on all fours 
if need be. Josselin was also among her subjects, but for the first 
two years of Miss Phraisie’s existence he was very little at home. 
The year and a half after his father’s marriage were spent at a pri- 
vate tutor’s ; then came Cambridge, and new interests and new life 
for the young man, while Tempy lived on still in the old life, and 
among the old thoughts and prospects. For Tempy time did not 
efface old feelings, but only repeated those of the past more vividly. 
Perhaps her father took it for granted that because she was silent 
all was as he wished, and that she had ceased to think of Charles 
Bolsover ; indeed one day he said as much with quiet satisfaction to 
Susanna, who looked a doubtful acquiescence. But Tempy grew 
more and more reserved about herself ; neither to her inquiring 
Aunt Fanny nor to her step-mother would she speak any more. I 
think Phraisie was the only person to whom Tempy Dymond ever 
made any confidences. 

“Don’t ty, To-to,” said Phraisie one day, “ toz it’s vezzy naughty.” 


134 


MRS. DYMOND. 


Tempy laughed, and began to play bo-peep behind the sheet of 
the Times which had made her cry; it was a June day Times, .with 
Oxford and Cambridge lists in its columns. Phraisie couldn’t read, 
and had never heard of any prize poem, except perhaps “See saw, 
Margery Daw,” or she might have seen that Charles Bolsover of St. 
Boniface was the prize poet of the year. 

It was later in the afternoon of that same summer’s day that the 
Dymond family, tempted out by the beauty of the weather, in com- 
pany with numerous other families of the earth, and the air, and the 
water, might have been seen quietly walking by the field-way to- 
wards Bolsover Hall. A message had come up from Aunt Fanny, 
stating that signs and tokens had arrived from the roving uncle, 
Peregrine Bolsover. These strange camphor-scented treasures used 
to appear from time to time, giving some clew to the donor’s travels. 
He hated writing, and preferred this means of communication with 
his friends. 

Tempy was even more silent than usual as she walked along the 
slope of the field, leading little Phraisie by the hand. At every 
step the child stooped to pick the heads of the delicate flowers that 
were sprinkling the turf with purple and white and golden dust. 

The colonel walked on with Susanna. The hour was full of 
exquisite peace and tranquillity and summer distance. As they 
cross the Crowbeck meadows (they lead by a short cut to the gar- 
den of the Hall), the soft wind meets them blowing from across the 
lake and tossing the fragrance which still hangs from every hedge 
and bank and neighboring cottage porch into their faces; white 
roses in sweet clusters, lilies from adjacent cottage gardens, scent 
the highways; a little stream dashes across the way, watering the 
green meadows on either side, and Phraisie, laughing and chatter- 
ing, is lifted over. The June fields are sumptuous with flowers and 
splendid weeds. Foxgloves stand in stately phalanx, full beds of 
meadow-sweet are waving, the blue heads of the forget-me-not cover 
the water’s edge. A broad plank crosses the bubbling rivulet, and 
leads to the upslope and to the Bolsover farm beyond, where the 
cows are browsing or looking over the low walls that enclose their 
boundaries ; a colony of ducks comes down to the water from under 
the farm gate, waddling, with beautiful white breasts. 

“ Dook, dook, pitty ’itty quack-quacks, papa, dook,” cries Phraisie, 
setting off running after her parents ; and the colonel stops and 
looks at ducks with an interest in them he has not felt for half a 
century, while Susy, smiling, stands gazing at her little blue-eyed 
naturalist. 

At Bolsover Hall Miss Phraisie was a no less important member of 


ABOUT PHRAISIE. 


135 


the family than at Crowbeck Place. The good-natured squire used 
to waylay her as she was walking up the avenue, and bring her by 
the back way into his private room, where he would detain her by 
many interesting and rapidly following experiments : the click of 
pistols, red balls from the billiard-table, whips, spurs, shiny, noisy 
whirling objects of every possible description, until presently Mrs. 
BolsoveT would appear, followed by a couple of Aunt Fanny’s 
dogs, with a “ Baby, baby, don’t disturb your uncle;” and then the 
fickle Phraisie, starting off in pursuit, would forget her uncle’s past 
attentions and leave him panting, but tidy as ever, to put by all the 
many charming objects he had produced for her benefit. 

It would be difficult to imagine anything less congruous than the 
squire and his favorite gunroom, where he spent so many peaceful 
hours. It might have seemed at first view a terrific apartment. 
A death’s-head and. cross-bones (stuck up by Charlie Bolsover) or- 
namented the top of the old-fashioned clock; along the fireplace 
nothing more terrible than a row of pipes’ heads might be seen 
hanging from pegs; but everywhere upon the walls were murderous 
weapons shining m their places — revolvers, crossed foils, and fenc- 
ing implements. A great curling sword, all over ornaments and 
flourishes, hung over the comfortable leather sofa cushions, where 
Uncle Bolsover loved to doze away the hours. 

Day after day Uncle Bolsover used to go peacefully off to sleep 
over his Times, among all these trophies and weapons of destruc- 
tion. There he lies to-day slumbering tranquilly; the tranquillity, 
the soothing sunshine, all contribute to his happy dreams. The 
squire has earned his repose. He has been all the morning unpack- 
ing the huge case which has come jogging up from the other side 
of the world, whence Peregrine Bolsover, having heard of Colonel 
Dymond’s marriage, has despatched an extra crateful of traveller’s 
gifts to his family at home. He had heard the news from his sis- 
ter Fanny, whose flowing streams of correspondence contrived to 
reach the wanderer even in those distant countries which he fre- 
quented; countries so far away, so little known, that it seemed as 
if they had been expressly created for his use. The gifts are of a 
generous, inconvenient, and semibarbarous character : elephants’ 
tusks, rude strings of teeth, and gold beads for the bride ; carved 
ostrich eggs for the colonel ; a priceless bamboo strung with the 
spine-bones of some royal dynasty for Mrs. Bolsover; various dag- 
gers wrapped in rough paper, and marked '‘Poison— very danger- 
ous,"' for the squire; a Spanish leather saddle all embroidered for 
Charlie, besides several gods of various religions and degrees of 
hideousness. Gratitude, natural bewilderment, and hopeless con- 


136 


MBS. DYMOND. 


fusion raise up mixed emotions in the family on receiving these 
tokens of their absent member’s affection. The squire having con- 
scientiously unpacked the chest, ranged the various objects round 
the room, and put the daggers safely in the cupboard out of the 
way, feels that he has earned his afternoon’s siesta. As he sleeps 
the door opens gently, and a pale, handsome young man comes in 
quietly. By his rings, by his black curls, by his shiny shoes and 
red silk stockings, it is easy to recognize Charlie Bolsover restored 
to his usual health and spirits, and profiting by his newly-gained 
honors and by the first days of his long vacation to come off unin : 
vited, and even under prohibition, to the place where he is always 
returning in spirit. 

“Good heavens! Charlie,” says Uncle Bolsover, waking up with 
a start. 

“Aunt Fanny sent me in to wake you up, Uncle Bol,” said 
Charlie, with a smile. “ She says I may stay. ” 


CHAPTER XIV. 

UNDER THE CEDAR-TREES. 

“ 0 sweet fancy ! let her loose , 

Everything is spoiled by use. 

Where's the cheek that doth not fade, 

Too much gazed at?' n . . . — Anon. 

The colonel and his wife had been met at the door, and told that 
the ladies were at tea in the garden ; and without entering the house 
or visiting the gunroom on their way, they passed by the side gate 
that led to the velvet lawns, so greenly spread beneath the shade of 
those old trees which have always seemed to me the rightful owners 
of Bolsover Hall. The tea-table stood under a cedar which had 
sheltered three or four generations of Bolsovers in turn, and which 
had seen grandparents and parents at play before Fanny Bolsover 
and her sister and her brothers had grown up from children. The 
eldest of the generation, Tempy’s mother, the first Tempy, who mar- 
ried little Jacky Dymond, as the colonel was once called, was long 
since dead, and so was Charles, the youngest brother, the father Of 
the present Charles. Peregrine, who came next to the squire, and 
who once climbed to the rook’s nest on the upper boughs of the tall- 
est cedar, was far away, and had returned no more to the old place. 
And the brilliant Fanny, the lovely spoiled girl who once thought 


UNDER THE CEDAR-TREES. 


137 


all mankind, all life was at her feet— was this what she had come to, 
this garish, affected woman, with her disappointed ambitions, her 
limited imaginations, her ostentatious cleverness, and dominating 
will? The good squire in all his sixty years had scarcely travelled 
beyond the shadow of his old trees, nor changed in heart since he 
first came out at the head of the brotherhood to play hide-and-seek 
upon the lawn. 

Miss Bolsover advanced to meet the little party — Susanna and 
Tempy, and Phraisie running ahead, and Jacky Dymond, now so- 
bered, silvered, settled, and no more like the youth she could remem- 
ber than she resembled the Fanny of forty years ago. Aunt Fanny 
was unusually gracious (so it seemed to Susy). She sent the servant 
for a low table and a baby-chair for Phraisie ; she insisted on order- 
ing tea upon the lawn for them; she stirred and mixed milk and 
water, and divided sponge-cakes and strawberries and cream with 
extra alacrity; she would not hear of the colonel going into the 
house to look for the squire. 

“We will leave poor Frederick to have his nap out,” says Miss 
Bolsover; “plenty of time, John, to see the presents. Do let us 
enjoy this lovely afternoon in peace! It is so good of poor dear 
Peregrine; only I can’t conceive what we are to do with all the eggs 
he sends home. Do look at that lovely effect of light upon the lake, 
Susanna! So you are going on to the magistrates’ dinner at County- 
side, John? What time is your train? Shall you call in on your 
way back? I hear Lord Neighborton is expected to speak. Poor 
you ! you will have to propose his health. Little mademoiselle, where 
are you running to?” in a high staccato voice. “ Do keep the child 
quietly here and amused, Tempy dear. More strawberries, any- 
body? Ah! here comes Car from the schools. Well, Car, tired? 
What news? When is the terrible inspector to come?” 

And Aunt Car wearily sinks down upon a chair, not without a 
benevolent iron grin of welcome to Phraisie, who runs straight up 
to her and climbs upon her knee, and begins at once to pop straw- 
berries into her mouth. 

Miss Bolsover, for some reason or other, seemed absolutely deter- 
mined that no one should move from the tea-table. 

“Well! have you seen the presents, Phraisie?” Mrs. Bolsover was 
beginning. 

“Car, Car, don’t talk of poor dear Peregrine’s horrors just yet?” 
cries Aunt Fanny. “You know they are always the same— claws 
and teeth, and fusty bison-skins,” and as she spoke the stable clock, 
soft and clear and deliberate, came to their ears, striking the three- 
quarters. 


138 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“A quarter to six,” says the colonel. 

“Car,” says Miss Bolsover, “the man was here this morning; he 
says the clock is some minutes slow.” 

“It is all right by my watch,” said the colonel, looking down at 
his gold repeater. 

“I nearly missed my train yesterday,” Miss Bolsover remarked, 
absently stirring her tea; “but most likely — of course your watch 
is right, John.” 

However, to the punctual colonel this most likely was not to be 
endured. 

“I’ll make sure of my train, anyhow,” says he, getting up lei- 
surely. “Phraisie, will you give papa a kiss? Good-bye, Susy; 
expect me after dinner. Car, tell Bolsover I’ll look in on my way 
home.” 

As the colonel was walking off across the grass on his way to the 
station, the figures of Mr. Bolsover himself and another person might 
have been seen at the drawing-room window, where the squire stood 
trying to undo the hasp. Aunt Fanny, who had eyes everywhere, 
caught sight of the two, for she suddenly seized little scared Phraisie 
up in playful arms and went flying and rustling and panting across 
the lawn towards the house in time to meet her brother-in-law face 
to face on the step. 

“Here is our dear little Fayfay come to see Uncle Fred and all 
the pitty tings,” says Miss Bolsover, playfully, thrusting the child 
into her brother’s arms. “Don’t come out, Charlie boy; I want to 
speak to you, dear, most particularly. Come into my boudoir. 
Frederick, will you take the child into the gunroom? Auntie will 
come for her directly.” 

Presently a servant came out from the house with a message to 
Tempy under the tree. Miss Bolsover wanted to speak to her. 
Then Miss Bolsover herself returned again without Tempy, leading 
little Phraisie by the hand. 

“Tempy is delighted with the eggs and things,” says Aunt Fanny 
to Aunt Car. “I brought the little one back, Susanna. Your pony- 
carriage is come for you. I don’t know if you are at all afraid of 
keeping her out too late; I myself know nothing about it,” says Miss 
Bolsover, with her merry tinkle of ear-rings and laughter; “but if 
you would like to go home we will send Tempy home in the T-cart, 
and be glad to keep her.” 

“Tempy said she wanted to get back early,” Susanna answered, 
quite unsuspiciously. 

“ Oh, we will see to that,” cries Aunt Fanny, affectionately con- 
ducting Mrs. Dymond to the side-gate, where the pony-carriage was 


UNDER THE CEDAR-TREES. 


139 


standing. * * Dear me, you have never seen your beads after all, nor 
the scalps either. I’ll send them to you by Tempy.” 

Then Susy nodded and smiled and waved good-bye to Mrs. Bolso- 
ver, and was more than absorbed in making her little Phraisie kiss 
her hand and say good-bye too. Phraisie behaved beautifully and 
did all that was expected of her, and chattered all the way home on 
her mother’s knee. 

“Nice gentypan in dere, mamma,” said little Phraisie, as they 
drove off. “Gentypan kissed Fayfay.” 

Susy did not quite understand what Phraisie meant. 

“ No, dear,” she said, “ there was no gentleman only papa.” 

“ Ozzer ones,” said Phraisie, persisting. 

Susy waited dinner, but no Tempy came home, and Mrs. Dymond 
finished her meal by herself. All the bright, dazzling hours of the day 
seemed passing before her still, shining, crowding with light and life 
—with Phraisie ’s busy little life most of all, Susy went up-stairs on 
her way to her own room, and stood for a few minutes by Phraisie’s 
little crib, where all the pretty capers and sweet prattle and joy and 
wonder were quietly dreaming among the pillows. The child’s 
peaceful head lay with a warm flush and with tranquil, resting 
breath; the little hand hung over the quilt, half dropping a toy — 
it was some goggle-eyed, wide-awake dolly, staring hard, and with 
loops of tow and gilt ornaments, not unlike Miss Bolsover herself. 

For once Mrs. Dymond had also enjoyed her visit' to Bolsover 
Hall. Aunt Fanny had been .gracious. She had spared those 
thrusts which used to sting, for all Susy’s calm imperturbability. 
As for Mrs. Bolsover, Susy had learned to be less and less afraid of 
her grim advances. Little Fayfay, asleep or awake, was an ever- 
growing bond between the two women. Susy had brought Fay- 
fay’s nursery down ffom the upper floor, and she had now only to 
cross a passage from the nursery to reach her own sitting-room, 
where she found a green lamp lighted and a fire burning. Even 
in summer-time they used to light fires at Crowbeck after the sun 
was set. She had no other company than that of Zillah lying asleep 
by the hearth, but she wanted none other. She settled herself com- 
fortably in her sofa corner, where the lamp shed its pleasant light, 
and after writing a long, rambling pencil letter to her mother, Susy 
took up a novel and read assiduously for a time. Then she closed 
the book. Her little Phraisie’s eyes and looks, and her button of a 
nose, and her funny sweet sayings, seemed to come between her and 
the print. What chance has a poor author with such a rival? 
“Funny gentypan” — who could Phraisie mean by “funny genty- 
pan?” Then suddenly, as the baby herself might have done, Susan- 


140 


MRS. DYMOND. 


na, happy, thankful, resting, and at ease, dropped off into a sleep, 
sound and long and deep as these illicit slumbers are apt to be. I do 
not know how long her dreams had lasted; the nurse looked in, and 
not liking to disturb her, went off to bed. The clock struck ten and 
the half-hour, and suddenly Mrs. Dymond started up, wide awake; 
she thought she had heard a sound and her own name called, and 
she answered as she sat up on the couch, bewildered. Was it her 
husband’s voice? Was it Marney come home? Susy rubbed her 
eyes. All seemed silent again, but she had been startled, and look- 
ing at the clock she flushed up, ashamed of her long nap. Then 
she crossed the room to the bell and rang it, but no one came, for 
the maids had gone to bed and the men were in a different part of 
the house. I don’t know what nervous terror suddenly seized her, 
but as she listened still she grew more frightened. Then she thought 
of calling the nurse, and looked into the nursery again for that pur- 
pose; but gaining courage from the calm night-light and the peace- 
ful cradle, she came quietly away, only, as she crossed the passage, 
she now distinctly heard a low, continuous murmur of voices going 
on in some room not far distant. Then Susy reflected that house- 
breakers do not start long, audible conversations in the dead of 
night, and summoning up courage, she descended the broad flight of 
stairs which led to the sitting-rooms below; the voices were not 
loud, but every now and then the tones rose in the silence. As she 
came to the half-open drawing-room door (it was just under her 
dressing-room) she heard a man’s voice speaking in eager tones, and 
then the color rushed up into her face and once more her heart be- 
gan to beat, for she seemed to recognize Tempy’s low answer. She 
opened the door. There stood Charlie, who seemed to be destined 
to disturb the slumbers of his family. There stood Tempy beside 
him, in the glow of the dying embers — the two, sadly, happily miser- 
able, and yet together! Susy could see poor Tempy’s tears glisten- 
ing in the red firelight, and Charlie’s rings and decorations, as they 
stood holding each other’s hands in parting grief. 

Mrs. Dymond came in like a beautiful fate, in her long white 
dress, floating sternly across the room. She set her light upon the 
table. 

“Tempy!” she said. “Oh, Tempy, I could not have believed it 
of you. And how can you come,” Susanna said, turning to Charlie 
Bolsover, “how dare you come,” she repeated, “disturbing us, 
troubling us with your presence? Tempy has promised — has prom- 
ised not to see you,” she went on, excitedly. “ Why don’t you keep 
away? Do you not know that all our home peace and happiness 
depend upon your absence? You are not, you will never be, her 


UNDER TIIE CEDAR-TREES. 


141 


husband. Do you want to part her forever from her father?” cried 
Susy, passionately. “As for you, Tempy, I thought I could have 
trusted you as I trust myself. Was this why you stayed behind, 
why you deceived me?” 

Susy might have been kinder, she might have sympathized more, 
but that her own youth had taught her so sad, so desperate a lesson ; 
the comfortable debonnair vices, easy-going misdeeds and insinceri- 
ties, seemed to her worse and more terrible than the bitterest and 
most cutting truths, the sternest, baldest realities. That Tempy 
should deceive her, deceive her father, should be seeing Charlie by 
secret arrangement, seemed to Susy unworthy of them all. 

Charlie turned round upon her in a sudden fury. Where was his 
usual placid indifference now ? 

“If you knew what you were saying, if you had ever been in 
love,” he said, in a rage, speaking bitterly, indignantly, “you would 
not be so cruel to her, Mrs. Dymond. You part us for no reason 
but your husband’s fancy, and you divide us as if we were two sacks 
of potatoes. ‘Go,’ you say, ‘forget each other.’ You don’t know 
what you say. You might as well say, ‘ Do not exist at all ’ as tell 
us not to love each other. It may be easy enough for people who 
marry not for love but for money, or because they want comfortable 
homes or house-keepers, to part, but—” 

“ Oh, for shame, for shame, Charlie,” cried Tempy, starting away 
and pulling her hand from her lover. 

“ Let him speak; it is best so,” said Susanna, very stern and pale 
and uncompromising. “He has a right to speak.” 

“I speak because I feel, while you all seem to me stones and 
stocks,” cried the young fellow. “I speak because I love Tempy 
with all my heart, and you are condemning her and condemning me 
unheard to sorrow and life-long separation.” 

There was something, some utter truth of reality in the young 
man’s voice, something which haunted Susanna long after. This 
had come upon her suddenly, unexpectedly, but not for the first 
time did she feel uneasy, impatient with her husband. 

A sudden indignant protest rose in her heart; for the first time 
since her marriage she questioned and denied his infallibility. It 
might be true that Charlie Bolsover had been foolish, true that he 
was in debt, true that Tempy was rich and young, but was it not 
also true that these two people were tenderly, faithfully attached to 
each other? It seemed a terrible responsibility for the father to di- 
vide them; absolutely to say, “ Death to their love, let it be as noth- 
ing, let it cease forever.” Susy thought of the boy’s sad, wild looks 
as he rushed past her in the passage of Eiderdown’s Hotel. 


142 


MRS. DYMOND. 


She looked at him again. He was changed somehow ; he looked 
older, stronger, angrier, less desperate, more of a man. He stood 
fronting Tempy, not with the air of one who was ashamed and out 
of place, but as if he had a right to speak. Susy, Rhadamantine . 
though she was, covered her face with her two hands for a minute. 
She could not meet the young fellow’s reproachful look. It seemed 
to her that it had all happened before, that she had known it all 
along, known it from the beginning, even when Charlie, exasperated, 
turned from her to Tempy, saying, 

“Tempy, I can’t bear this any longer, you must decide between 
us. Send me away, if you have the heart to send me away.” 

Still Susy seemed to know it all, to know that Tempy was saying, 
“I shall never give you up, Charlie; but I cannot go against my 
father’s cruel will. ” 

The sound of wheels, of a horse’s hoofs stopping at the front door, 
brought the situation to a crisis. 

“Listen! That must be papa,” said Tempy, starting forward. 
“Go, Charlie, go! there is still time! You must not meet him!” 
and she, all in tears, took his hand into both hers, and would have 
dragged him to the window through which they had entered to- 
gether. 

“Go! Why should I go?” cried Charlie, exasperated, holding his 
ground. “I am not ashamed of being here,” and as he spoke Susy 
heard the hall door open. 

“He is right, Tempy,” she cried, with a bright look, and then 
with a sudden impulse Susanna ran to the dining-room door, threw 
it open, and called her husband by his name as he came into his 
house. 

“John! come here! Charles Bolsover is here,” said Susy, stand- 
ing in the dining-room door. 

Then she saw that her husband was looking very pale. Instead 
of coming up to her he stood by the staircase holding to the balus- 
ter. He looked very old suddenly, quite different somehow. 

“I know Charles Bolsover is here,” he said, looking hard at his 
wife. “I heard it just now before you told me. Tell him I will 
not see him. Tell him and Tempy to carry on their plots elsewhere. 
You, Susy, I can trust, thank God.” 

“Dear John, what is it?” Susy cried, running up to him. “ Tem- 
py, Tempy, come to your father! Come and tell him he can trust 
us all !” Susy cried, in despair at her husband’s strange manner and 
looks; and Tempy hearing Susy’s voice also came out with her 
round face still bathed in tears. 

“Oh! papa, what is it?” she said, geptly. “ I didn’t know Char- 


‘'the colonel goes home.” 143 

lie was to be at the Hall. Indeed I didn’t, though perhaps if I had 
I could not have kept away. I hadn’t seen him for, oh, so long; he 
walked back with me just now, that is all! Are you very angry?” 

The poor colonel’s face altered, changed, softened, the color seem- 
ed to como back into his lips. 

“I am not angry with you, my poor child,” he said, and he 
sighed, and held out his hand. Tempy felt that it was cold like 
stone. “I am tired; another time I will speak to you. I cannot 
see him. I thought — I thought you were all trying to deceive me,” 
he repeated, with an attempt at a smile. 

Tempy watched him step by step till he turned the corner of the 
staircase, still holding by the balusters. Long, long afterwards she 
seemed to see him climbing slowly and passing on. 


CHAPTER XV. 

“THE COLONEL GOES HOME.” 

“ I falter where I firmly trod , 

And falling with my weight of cares 
Upon the great world's altar stairs , 

That slope thro ’ darkness up to God , 

1 stretch lame hands of faith, and grope 
And gather dust and chaff, and call 
To what I feel is Lord of all , 

And faintly trust the larger hope."— In Memoriam. 

Susanna was not happy about her husband next morning. He 
seemed unlike himself ; though he said he was well, he looked dull and 
out of spirits. Tempy’s heart, too, was very heavy, and she hung her 
head over her sewing, setting one weary stitch after another as women 
do. Charlie was gone, she knew not when she should see him again ; 
and her father was there., and yet gone, too, in a way. She could not 
bear him to be so gentle, so reserved, so absent in his manner; she 
was longing for an explanation with him, longing to speak and yet 
scarcely knowing how to begin. When the play of life turns to 
earnest, how strangely one’s youthful valiance fails — that courage of 
the young, armed from head to foot with confident inexperience of 
failure and with hope all undimmed as yet. 

The colonel was busy all the morning, and closeted in his study 
with the bailiff. He came into Susy’s room once or twice, where # 
she was sitting with Tempy, and with little Phraisie playing at her 
knee. Phraisie was the one cheerful, natural person in the house 

10 


144 


MRS. DYMOND. 


this gloomy morning. The colonel’s silence did not silence her. 
Tempy’s depression seemed to vanish suddenly when the child came 
tumbling across the room from her mother’s knee; Tempy’s black 
looks (so curiously like her father’s) turned into some faint sem- 
blance of a smile as the little sister tugged at her dress to make her 
play. 

Susy had left the room when little Fayfay, perching at the win- 
dow, suddenly began to exclaim something about “papa and his 
gee-gee,” and Tempy, who had hoped that the moment for explana- 
tion had come, found that her father was starting for his morning 
ride, and now explanation must be again deferred. The explanation 
was not then, but it was very near at hand. 

Presently Susy looked into the room, with her straw hat on. 
“ Your father is gone to Ambleside. He has ordered James to meet 
him there at the station with the dog-cart; they will bring Josselin 
home. Won’t you come out now, Tempy? It will do you good; or 
will you come with me to Miss Fletcher’s after luncheon?” 

But Tempy shook her head. She would not come, neither then 
nor later. She sat stitching away the morning, moping through the 
hours in a dreary, unsatisfactory sort of way. Susanna hoped that 
Josselin’s return might cheer her up. 

“What did papa say to you last night?” Tempy suddenly asked, 
when she saw Susy getting up after luncheon to prepare for her 
walk. 

“ He said that he was glad that we had hidden nothing from him 
— that we had told him Charlie was here. He said he liked to feel 
that he could trust us,” Susanna answered, and as she spoke she 
seemed to see her husband’s kind face and his outstretched hand 
again. 

“Trust us?— trust you!” said Tempy. “Did Aunt Fanny tell 
him Charlie was here?” 

“No,” said Susy, blushing up. “ It was Aunt Car who told him; 
she had gone to bed when your father reached the Hall. She came 
out of her room in her dressing-gown, hearing his voice. Miss Bol- 
sover assured your father it was I who had arranged it all,” Susy 
went on ; and as she spoke two indignant tears flashed into her eyes. 

“Don’t! don’t! don’t!” cried poor Tempy. “My aunt knows 
how unhappy I am,” and she turned and ran out of the room. 

Susy was glad to meet Wilkins and her little Phraisie at the gar- 
den gate that afternoon. She was starting for her walk before the 
* travellers’ return. Phraisie was armed cap-a-pie and helmed in quilt- 
ed white and starch as a baby should be who is meant to defy the 


“THE COLONEL GOES IIOME.” 145 

sun. She had picked a bunch of flowers, and was hopping along 
the path, and chattering as she went something about “De pussy 
and de kitty is in de darden, and de kitty is eaten de petty flowers, 
and please, mamma, take ’ittle Fayfay wid dou.” 

“I should like her to come with me, Wilkins,” said Mrs. Dy- 
mond. “Iam going to call at the Miss Fletchers’.” 

“Oh! very well, mem,” says Wilkins, resigned. She prefers her 
own company to respectful attendance upon her mistress, but she 
is a good creature, and allows Susy to see a great deal of Phraisie. 
Perhaps the thought of Miss Fanny’s various paragons hanging by 
hairs over her head inclines Wilkins to regard her mistress’s fail- 
ings with leniency. Susy felt so sad and so much depressed that it 
was a real boon and comfort to be led along by the little one and 
to feel her warm hand in her own. Phraisie was sturdy on her legs, 
and thought nothing of the expedition. 

Their walk ran high up above the roadside, along a bank cut in 
the shelving slopes and shaded by big trees, of which the stems 
were wreathed and wrapped with ivy leaves. Beneath each natural 
arch formed by the spread of the great branches lay a most lovely 
world of cool waters and gentle mountain mist, of valleys full of 
peaceful, browsing sheep. A strange cloud hung along the crest 
of the Old Man flashing with light. Susanna remembered it long 
afterwards; every minute of that day seemed stamped and marked 
upon her mind. Phraisie went first, still chattering to her mamma, 
who followed quietly, looking out at the tranquil prospect; then 
came Wilkins. Once the nurse stopped short, and Susy, who had 
walked a little ahead, called to her. 

“I thought there was a something on the other side of the lake, 
mem,” says Wilkins. “ There’s a boat and a crowd.” 

Susy stopped, looked, moved on again after an instant’s pause. 
“I cannot see clearly across the lake,” she said; “but the rain is 
coming, we must not be long;” and she went on her way, still hold- 
ing Phraisie’s warm little hand. The Fletchers lived in a stone, 
slated cottage high up on the mountain-side; it was homely enough, 
scanty, but exquisitely clean and in perfect order. The little gar-* 
den, enclosed by its stone walls, flashed lilac, gold, and crimson, 
for the cottage flowers were all ablaze— convolvulus, floxes, sweet- 
william, and nasturtium opening to the rain - drops that were al- 
ready beginning to fall. 

Martha Fletcher, the younger sister who kept the school, was 
standing out in the porch as her visitors arrived, somewhat breath- 
less with their climb, and she came forward to welcome them with 
her smiling, peaceful looks and voice, and calling to her sister, 


146 


MRS. DYMOND. 


opened the cottage door and showed them in. There were two 
rooms on the ground-floor leading from one to another — pleasant 
rooms, scantily furnished, with slated floors, and lattice windows, 
and cross lights, and a few geraniums in pots ; both rooms opened 
to the garden. The first was a sort of kitchen, with a kettle boiling- 
on the hob ; the second was a parlor, with a few wooden chairs, an 
oak chest, and a quaint old cupboard that would have made the 
fortune of a collector. “It is old; it were never very much,” said 
Martha. In front of the cupboard, Jane, the elder sister, was lying 
back in her big chair knitting, with a patchwork cushion at her 
back. She looked pale and worn by ill health, but she, too, bright- 
ened to welcome their visitors. Both these sisters had the calm and 
well-bred manners of people who live at peace in the good company 
of great and lovely things. Susy herself had not such easy and digni- 
fied greetings for her guests, such kindness and unspoken courtesy 
in her ways, as that with which these two women now met her. 

Mrs. Dymond had come only intending to remain a few minutes, 
but from behind the Old Man some sudden storm began to spread, 
and in a few minutes, swiftly, rapidly, the clouds had gathered, and 
the rain began to pour very heavily all round about. 

Perhaps half an hour went by — a strange half-hour, which ever 
afterwards Susy looked back to with a feeling half of longing, half 
of miserable regret. It seemed to her as if some other Susanna 
had lived it, with its troubled apprehensions, with a heart full of 
pain, of dull excitement. So long as it had been her own self in 
question she had felt no disloyalty in suppressing her own wishes, 
crushing down the instinctive protest in her heart against the family 
thraldom and traditional subjection to conventionality. But now 
that Tempy’s happiness and honesty of mind were concerned, it 
seemed to Susy that the time had come to speak. She could not 
bear to disagree with her husband, but the sight of Tempy’s dull 
pain stung her into action. Ah! John, who was so good, so gentle 
and forbearing, he would understand her, he would yield to her 
entreaties, to Tempy’s pleading. 

Susy sat paying her visit in a curious, double state of mind. 
The rain had ceased, the cottage garden was refreshed ; the floxes, 
the zinias, the lupins, the marigolds, the whole array of cottage 
finery was refreshed and heavy with wet. The birds had begun 
to fly and chirp again. Little Phraisie stood at the door peeping out 
at an adventurous kitten which was cautiously advancing along the 
wooden bench ; Martha sat erect on the well - rubbed mahogany 
settle; Jane lay back in her big chair, with an invalid’s gentle eyes 
full of interest fixed on their young visitor. 


“THE COLONEL GOES HOME.” 


147 


“How comely Mrs. Dymond du look,” thinks Jane the fanciful, 
“there side by side wi’ Martha on the settle.” 

Mrs. Dymond dressed in some soft brown pelisse with a touch of 
color in it, her loose country gloves, her lace ruffles, her coquettish 
brown felt hat with the shining bird’s breast, all seemed to make 
up a pleasant autumnal picture, even more interesting to Jane than 
that baby one in the door- way. After all, a tidy, well-dressed child 
is no prettier an object than any one of the little ones bare-legged 
and rosy and tattered, such as those Jane and Martha were used to 
teach and have up to play in the garden. But a well-dressed, beau- 
tiful lady is an interesting sight to a country-woman. Martha, 
from habit, perhaps, kept watch over Phraisie, but Jane’s eyes rested 
gently upon the young mother. 

Susy lingered on. There was a sense of peace within as without 
the cottage — a feeling of goodness, of quiet duty fulfilled, and un- 
pretending refinement. A thought crossed her mind : what a happy 
life she might have led if only these women could have been her sis- 
ters — true ladies, indeed, they seemed to be — tranquil, courteous in 
their ways, making no difference between persons, as gentle and as 
welcoming to the shepherd’s wife, who came drenched to the door 
in her clogs to report of Mrs. Barrow’s fourth, as to Susy herself, 
the lady of the Place. While the neighbors talked on, Susy, girl- 
like, began to picture a life with John in a pleasant cottage with a 
garden full of flowers. She seemed putting off fhe moment of return 
and explanation, and trying to think of other things. Susy dreaded 
going home, dreaded the explanation before her, dreaded the pain 
she must give her husband if she told him all she felt, and that his 
decision seemed to her unjust and arbitrary— dreaded concealment 
of the truth. Some instinct seemed to tell her that Miss Bolsover, 
whatever happened, would make ill-will between them all, and that 
trouble was at hand; and yet the heavy, indefinable sense which had 
haunted her all the morning was lighter since she had reached that 
peaceful home and seen the simple and comforting sight of two con- 
tented souls. 

These fancies did not take long, a little ray of light came strag- 
gling by the lattice. Phraisie leaped and laughed in the door-way 
at the kitten’s antics; suddenly the child came running back to her 
mother’s knee, and hid her face in her lap and began to cry. 

“ My Phraisie, what is it?” said Susy, stooping and lifting her up. 
“Did the kitty scratch you?” But little Phraisie didn’t answer at 
first, then looking up into her mother’s face, 

“Papa — Fayfay wants papa,” was all she said. 

“I think papa must be home by this,” said Susy, going to the 


148 


MRS. DYMOND. 


door with the child in her arms ; and she felt that with Phraisie in 
her arms she could protest for Tempy’s future rights. She could 
trust that kind and generous heart which had ever been so true to 
her, to them all. The rain was gathering again; the sisters urged 
her to stay, but she was impatient— suddenly impatient — to get back. 
A feeling which seemed strange, indescribable, outside every - clay 
things and common feelings, had fallen on her once more ; was it the 
storm in the air? As she looked at the opposite hills, she felt as if 
the very line of the clouds against the sky had terror in it. No tan- 
gible impression was in her mind, but a restless alarm and discom- 
fort. Susy wondered if she was going to be ill, though she was not 
given to fancies; her one desire was to get home, and she took leave, 
hastily gathering up her skirts with Wilkins’s help, tucking Phraisie 
safe into the folds of her pelisse. Jane and Martha looked gravely 
at her, and did not attempt to detain her. “Take care of ye’sell,” 
they said. Martha came with them to the garden-gate, and stood 
holding it open, and as they were starting, they heard a step hurry- 
ing up from below. It was one of the grooms from the Place, who, 
not seeing Susy, exclaimed, 

“Oh! Miss Fletcher, have you heard that there’s been a’ accident 
across the lake? The colonel and Mr. Jo have been cast out of t’ 
dog-cart. I am seeking Mrs. Dymond.” 

“An accident!” said Susy, coming forward, holding Phraisie very 
tight. “Are they hurt, James? Is the colonel — ” 

“Neither o’ the gentlemen had spoke when I came away to seek 
ye, mem,” said the man, with a pale face, and some wonder at seeing 
her so composed. “George Tyson brought them across in t’ boat 
wi’ doctor; the parson is there wi’ Miss Bolsover. We have been 
looking for you, ma’am, a long while.” 


CHAPTER XVI. 

THE DOCTOR AND THE LADY. 

“ ‘ But the last tune the harp played ihen, 

Binnorie , 0 Binnorie. 1 ” 

The train came in in the early morning, and the great London 
doctor got out; he had travelled all night comfortably enough in 
his first-class corner; he was there to see what could be done; he 
had a confident, cheerful aspect, which gave hope to the by-standers. 
The porter began to think the colonel might recover after all; the 


THE DOCTOR AND THE LADY. 


149 


station - master also seemed to regain confidence. Mr. Bolsover, 
who had come to meet the train, and who liked to take things 
pleasantly, shook the oracle warmly hy the hand. “I’m afraid you 
will find things as bad as can be,” he said, as if he was giving a 
welcome piece of news, though his pale, round face belied his 
cheery tones. “Jeffries has been up all night. I have brought 
the carriage for you. We telegraphed to you yesterday when Jef- 
fries thought so badly of him, poor fellow. Get in, please; drive 
hard, George. ” 

“ Is Mrs. Dymond aware of the danger?” said the doctor, as he 
got into the carriage, after seeing that his bag was safely stowed 
on the box. 

“She is anxious, very anxious,” said Mr. Bolsover; “so are my 
wife and sister, who are nursing them all most devotedly. You 
know the boy is hurt too; broken rib — concussion. They were 
driving home together; they think poor Dymond fainted and fell, 
the horse was startled, the carriage upset just by the forge. Luck- 
ily one of Dymond’s own men was standing by; the poor fellows 
were brought straight home across the lake in the ferry-boat. Mrs. 
Dymond was from home at the time. The boy recovered con- 
sciousness almost- immediately, but my poor brother-in-law seems 
very ill, very bad indeed,” said Mr. Bolsover, with an odd chirrup- 
ing quake in his voice; then recovering, and trying to quiet him- 
self, “Do you dislike this?” and he pulled a cigar-case out of 
his pocket. 

“Not at all— not at all,” said the doctor, looking out of the win- 
dow. “ What a delightful place you have here!” 

“It is almost all my brother-in-law’s property,” said Mr. Bolso- 
ver ; “all entailed upon my nephew. We married sisters, you 
know.” 

“Oh, indeed!” said the doctor. “ I did not know.” 

“I was not speaking of the present Mrs. Dymond,” says Mr. Bol- 
sover, hastily. “ The second wife is quite a girl; some of us thought 
it a pity at the time. Poor child, it will be easier for her now, per- 
haps, than if they had been longer married.” 

The horses hurried on, the gates were reached, the neat sweep, 
the pleasant shade of trees; the doors of the house flew open, and 
the servants appeared, as on that day when the colonel had brought 
Susy home as a bride. The doctor was shown into the colonel’s 
study, where a fire had been lighted and some breakfast set out. 
The master was lying scarcely conscious on his bed up-stairs, but 
his daily life seemed still to go on in the room below. The whips 
and sticks were neatly stacked against the walls, his sword was 


150 


MRS. DYMOND. 


slung up, his belt, his military cap, everything curiously tidy and 
well-ordered. The Army List and Directory, the Bradshaws and 
Whitaker, were each in their place on the table in a sort of pattern. 
The bookcases were filled, and every shelf was complete ; the writ- 
ing apparatus was in order, with good pens and fresh ink, for Dr. 
Mayfair to write the prescriptions with. They could do little good 
now, for all the good pens and paper. The neat packets of letters, 
answered and unanswered, with broad elastic straps, lay on the 
right and left of the writing-book; the post-bag was hanging on a 
nail, with a brass plate fixed above, on which the hours of the post 
were engraved. Everything spoke of a leisurely, well-ordered ex- 
istence, from the shining spurs on their stands to the keys in the 
despatch-box. The doctor had not long to wait; the door opened, 
and a lady came in — a fat, florid lady, who seemed to have per- 
formed a hasty toilet, not without care. She was wrapped in a 
flowing, flowery tea-gown, a lace hood covered her many curls and 
plaits ; she had gold slippers, emerald and turquoise rings ; she ad- 
vanced with many agitated motions. 

“Oh, doctor! — oh, how we have looked for you! You may im- 
agine what this night has been. How am I to tell you all ? A 
chair. Thank you. Yes — oh yes! — our darling boy scarcely con- 
scious — his father in this most alarming condition,” and she laid 
her jewelled fingers on the doctor’s sleeve. “Mr. Bolsover will 
have told you something, but he has no conception of what we 
have suffered, what anxiety we have endured. My brain seems 
crushed,” said the lady. “If you felt my pulse, doctor, you would 
see that the heart’s action is scarcely perceptible.” 

“You are very anxious, of course,” said the doctor, rather per- 
plexed; “ shall I come up-stairs at once? Is Mr. Jeffries up-stairs?” 

“ He will be here in a minute, if you will kindly wait; and you 
must be wanting some refreshment,” said the lady. “Dr. Mayfair, 
do you prefer tea or coffee? Here are both as I ordered. One re- 
quires all one’s nerve, all one’s strength for the sad scene up-stairs 
— the strong man cast down in his prime — let me pour out the 
tea.” 

The doctor, somewhat bored by the lady’s attentions, stood before 
the fire waiting for the arrival of Mr. Jeffries, and asking various 
details of the illness, of the accident, to which his hostess gave 
vague and agitated answers. “I was resting in my room before 
dressing to drive out, when my maid brought me word of the 
dreadful report. I lost not a moment; I told them to bring me a 
cloak, a hat, anything, the first come; to order the carriage, to send 
a messenger to say that I was on the way. But one has to pay for 


THE DOCTOR AUD THE LADY. 


151 


such efforts; Nature will not he defrauded of her rights. You, doc- 
tor, know that better than I do.” 

“ Oh, of course ; no, yes,” says the doctor, with a vacant eye, drink- 
ing his tea and looking round : was this the enthusiastic young girl 
disapproved of by the poor colonel’s relations! “Mr. Jeffries has 
been sent for, you tell me,” said the great man, politely interrupting. 

‘ ‘ I hear him now, ” said Miss Bolsover, excitedly, and rushing to 
the door she opened it wide. “Here, come in here ; Dr. Mayfair 
is expecting you,” said the lady, in a loud whisper. “ Oh, Mr. Jef- 
fries, you can tell him what we have all endured ; you can tell him 
what a lifelong tie it has been between us. How unlike that of a 
few short months ; how much deeper, how much — ” Mr. Jeffries 
looked round uneasily ; he was followed by Susanna, still strangely 
quiet, scarcely uttering a word, but with anxious, dark - encircled 
eyes trying to read from their faces what was written there. She 
heard Miss Bolsover’s speech, and crimsoned up as she turned a 
quick, reproachful glance upon her; even at such terrible moments 
people are themselves, alas ! and their daily failings do not die 
when those they love lie down for the last time, but assert them- 
selves, bitter, exaggerated. To reproach her at such a time! Oh, 
it was cruel, Susy .thought; and then she forgot it all— Miss Bolso- 
ver’s sneers, and the petty pangs and smarts of daily jealousies ; 
she caught sight of a glance which passed between Mr. Jeffries and 
Dr. Mayfair, and all her strength and courage seemed suddenly to 
go, and she sat down for a moment in the nearest chair, while Miss 
Bolsover followed the doctors out of the room. Susy herself had 
no hope, Jeffries’ deprecating look answered her most anxious fears. 
She had watched all through the night, and each hour as it passed 
seemed to weigh more heavily upon her heart. Now for a moment 
the load seemed so great that she could scarcely bear it; she seemed 
suddenly choking, and she opened thp window and went out into 
the open air to breathe. There he was, dying, and all the gar- 
den was so sweet, so full of early green and flowers. He was 
doomed, she knew it, and a new day had dawned, and nothing 
was changed from yesterday; only the beauty of it all seemed ach- 
ing and stinging instead of delighting her, its very sweetness turned 
to grief, its peace jarred like misery, a great flash of brilliant pain 
seemed spread out before her. Why had they ever come there ? 
Susanna thought. Oh, why? How happy she had been alone 
with him in London. How unhappy she had been among these 
cruel people. How dear and how kind he had been ; how little 
they knew her. All the spiteful things Miss Bolsover had ever 
said came into her mind with a passionate exaggeration. Ah! she 


• 152 


MRS. DYMOND. 


was not ungrateful, slie was not mercenary, she had not married 
for money and mean things. Her husband had been her kindest, 
tenderest friend ; he had helped her in her sorest trouble, and she 
had come to him gratefully and with trust. And now all was over, 
and they would no longer molest her. 

Poor Susy wrung her hands in a miserable impatience. She was 
a young creature still, exaggerated and uncharitable as young, warm- 
hearted people are. The lovely sweetness of the morning, the ten- 
der light upon the sky, only seemed to sting her to fresh pain. Then 
she thought of his dear pale face upon the bed up-stairs — of his look 
of wistful love with some sad terror of conviction. She had meant 
to speak to him that very day, to tell him all her heart, and now it 
was too late, it was over now. All was coming to an end forever, 
and she had not half loved him, half told him how she felt his good- 
ness. Reader, forgive her if she with the rest of us is selfish in her 
great grief, so keen, so fierce, distorting and maddening every pass- 
ing mood and natural experience. She could not stand. She fell 
on her knees, poor child, with a sudden overpowering burst of sob- 
bing pain. There was an iron roller somewhere by the wall, and 
she laid her poor head upon the iron with incoherent sobs and 
prayers for his life, for strength to love him as she ought, for for- 
giveness for the secret rancor which had poisoned her life. As she 
knelt there two kind, warm arms were flung round her. ‘ ‘ Dear Susy, 
don’t, don’t,” sobs Tempy, who had come to look for her; “don’t, 
don’t, don’t,” was all the girl could say; “be good, be brave, I’ve 
come to fetch you.” Susy started up, quiet again, ruling herself 
with a great effort. Mr. Jeffries had also come down hurriedly into 
the drawing-room to look for her, and as the two women entered 
through the open casement, pale and shaking still, he looked very 
grave, and beckoned them up-stairs. “ He is come to himself, he is 
asking for you,” he said to Susy; “you must be very calm, dear 
Mrs. Dymond.” Tempy was now sobbing in her turn, Susy was 
white, quiet, composed. Her husband knew her to the last, and 
looked up with a very sweet smile as she came to his side. 

An hour afterwards she was a widow, and the grand London doc- 
tor went back to town. 


t 


BOOK III. 

AFTERWARDS. 


There was a roaring in the wind all night, 

The rain came heavily and fell in floods ; 

But now the sun is rising calm and bright, 

The birds are singing in the distant woods ; 

Over his own sweet voice the stock-dove broods, 

The jay makes answer as the magpie chatters, 

And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of waters 

W. Wordsworth. 


' / c — ! ,‘ mr - w i " < ■ n 

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CHAPTER XVII. 

AFTERWARDS. 


“ When the grass was closely mown , 

Walking on the lawn alone , 

In the turf a hole I found. 

And hid a soldier underground. 

Under grass alone he lies , 

Looking up with leaden eyes , / 

Scarlet coat and pointed gun , 

To the stars and to the swi.” — R. L. Stephenson. 

Among the many who appeared to show their respect to the good 
colonel’s memory was Mr. Marney, in a shining and easy suit of 
deepest black — an appearance of profoundest grief tempered by 
resignation, to which a new hat swathed in crape greatly contrib- 
uted. Aunt Fanny, strange to say, was somewhat taken by Mr. 
Marney; his frankness (how Susy loathed it), his respectful sym- 
pathy, his intelligent grasp of the situation, of the many youthful 
failings to which, with all his affection for his wife’s daughter, he 
could not be blind, his full appreciation of the good colonel’s strange 
infatuation, his easy compliments, his amusing little jokes at his 
.wife and family, uttered in a subdued voice as befitted the circum- 
stances, all amused Miss Bolsover, who accepted his odious compli- 
ments to Tempy’s indignant amazement. 

Susy had not asked Mr. Marney to come ; he was no guest of hers ; 
she was unaffected in her grief, unselfish, anxious to spare others. 
She would have come down had it been necessary, but hearing of 
her step-father’s presence she kept away, up-stairs by Jo’s bedside, 
or in her own room, silent, and apart in her sorrow. Some instinct 
seems to warn simple and defenceless creatures of the dangers of 
beasts of prey. 

Meanwhile, in Jo’s absence, Miss Bolsover received the company, 
gave every possible direction. She was in her element. Pens, ink, 
and paper, her flowing hand and spreading sheets of platitude, sur- 
rounded by broad edges of black, filled the post-bags to the brim. 
Mr. Bolsover, all crushed somehow, sat dolefully dozing or smoking 
in his cosey gunroom. Mrs. Bolsover came there, too, for comfort, 
or moped silent and apart. Sometimes she went over to the Place. 


156 


MRS. DYM0ND. 


Susy liked to have her there. Aunt Car would come in looking old 
and scared to the little boudoir where Susy sat alone. The young 
widow used to go to meet her, and without a word would put little 
Phraisie on her knee. 

Charlie Bolsover was present at his uncle’s funeral, naturally and 
unaffectedly shocked and overcome, and yet not unnaturally think- 
ing still more of Tempy than of his uncle, who had dealt hard meas- 
ure to him and never done him justice. He had but a few hours to 
remain at Tarndale, and he had determined to come and go without 
obtruding his own personal feelings either upon Tempy or her step- 
mother. But man’s resolves, especially Charlie’s, are apt to be car- 
ried by the tide of the moment, and the sight of poor Tempy in her 
black, with her wistful looks, was too much for his philosophy. He 
came up to the house late in the afternoon of the funeral day, hop- 
ing for another sight of her. She was alone in the drawing-room. 

And then it happened that when Charlie would have gone up to 
her, Tempy for the first time in all her life drew back, shrunk from 
him ; she glanced at him, and then dared not look again. 

“Tempy!” he said. 

She did not look up, but she stood pale and frozen, with averted 
eyes. 

“Go, Charlie,” she said at last. “ This is no time to think of our 
selfish wishes ; ours have been selfish. I see how wrong — how 
wrong I was all along. Go, dear Charlie,” she said, covering her 
eyes with her hand. “ Go,” she repeated, angrily. “Do you hear 
me?” lief* overstrung nerves were almost beyond her control. 

“ I hear you,” said Charlie, turning sick and pale; “you do not 
mean it, Tempy.” 

“ Yes, I mean it, I mean it,” Tempy cried. “ Why do you doubt 
it? Go, I tell you; go.” 

Charlie stood as if some gun had been fired at him; he tried to 
speak; no words came. With one look he turned and walked 
straight out of the room. Tempy waited for an instant, heard the 
front door shut, then sank into the first chair. When Susy came to 
look for her, she found the girl still sitting in the semidarkness on 
a chair against the wall. She had not moved since Charlie had left 
her an hour before. Seeing Susy she looked up. 

“You are satisfied,” she said, “I have done as papa wished. I 
have sent Charlie away.” 

She spoke in a thick, dazed way which frightened her step-mother. 

“ Your father wished it,” Susy repeated, faltering. “Dear Tem- 
py, you could not go against his will ;” and Susy took Tempy’s cold 
hand and put her arm round her neck. 


AFTERWARDS. 


157 


“You did not love him as I did,” said Tempy, tearing her hand 
away and flashing her blue eyes at her young step-mother. “He 
loved you, but you did not deserve it, and Charlie loves me and I 
do not deserve it.” The girl was in a frenzy of grief and despair. 
“Ah, papa thought I did not care for him because I loved Charlie,” 
cried Tempy; “ but I have given poor Charlie up for papa. I let 
him go, I let him go, and now lam all by myself. They are both 
gone, both gone; they will never come any more,” and she wrung 
her two hands. 

Susy stood in silence, listening to the girl’s reproaches. Were 
they deserved? She did not know; she did not ask. For the first 
time she felt herself alone, silent, helpless, as people feel who have 
to learn to live anew, without the strength of long use to hold by. 

“Oh, Tempy!” Susy said at last, “ I do honor you; I can only feel 
you have done right. Let us put all doubts and perplexities away 
just for the present and wait. In a little time everything will seem 
more clear.” And Tempy took heart somehow once more. Susy’s 
cordials were more to her mind than Aunt Fanny’s chloral. 

The next day the blinds were up, Miss Bolsover, in bugles and 
crape, was still occupied with her own and everybody else’s feel- 
ings, giving every possible direction in the conduct of affairs. Char- 
lie and Mr. Marney had departed. Tempy’s tears were flowing ; 
but that explanation with her step-mother had taken some of the 
bitterness from her heart. She had done what she could. She sat 
in Jo’s room, languid, by an open window, looking across the gar- 
dens and the lake, and the beautiful smiling valley. The valley it- 
self, the fringed hills, the moorlands which enclosed them, were all 
a part of Jo’s inheritance. 

There are also other things entailed besides farms and country 
estates which parents leave behind them. They leave their lives to 
their children as well as their savings, and their looks and family 
characteristics. Jo and Tempy inherited among other things their 
father’s directness and simplicity of character, and his upright and 
honorable name, and the memory of his many kind and liberal 
actions. 

When the will was read, it was found that the colonel had left a 
legacy of £5000 to each of his daughters, and £1000 a year to his 
widow during her widowhood. Subject to those charges, and vari- 
ous legacies enumerated, he bequeathed the whole of his property 
to his son. Jo and Tempy also inherited their mother’s property, 
which had been settled on them at his marriage. 

Strangely enough, the colonel had added a codicil to his will on 
the very day of the fatal accident, for he had called at his solicitor’s 


158 


MRS. DYMOND. 


while waiting at Countyside for Jo’s train. By this codicil the 
colonel executed a power of appointment contained in the settle- 
ment made on his marriage with his first wife, and appointed the 
trust funds in equal shares to his son and daughter; but he made a 
proviso that the whole of that property should go to Josselin in the 
event of his daughter Tempy marrying under twenty-one without 
the consent of her guardian ; and he appointed his widow, Mrs. Su- 
sanna Dymond, to be the sole guardian of his three children. 

In the event of Mrs. Dymond’s remarriage, she was to give up 
her right to her jointure as well as to the guardianship of the elder 
children. This provision, which seemed of little importance, was 
not in the codicil but in the will, and had been suggested by the 
family solicitor. The good, loyal old colonel was indignant at the 
time at something his sisters had said, and which the family adviser 
had quoted, and protesting his wife’s indifference to money, had 
agreed to the clause without wasting much thought upon future pos- 
sibilities. Susy had never cared for money, of that he required no 
assurance, and as for remarriage, what should she want to marry 
again for ? she was much better at home at the Place, looking after 
Phraisie and the other two, thought the colonel to himself, to say 
nothing of poor Mrs. Marney and her boys. The kind old son-in- 
law had left Mrs. Marney a hundred pound legacy as a token of 
friendly regard, together with a small sum to each of the boys, and 
there were legacies to his sister and her husband, and to his sister-in- 
law. Miss Bolsover was offended by the portion which came to her 
share. Mr. Marney was also disappointed, and made no secret of 
his irritation. It wa'fe a shabby concern, he said, from beginning to 
end. What is a hundred pounds? A mere nothing; and we owe it 
all and more too. The boys’ £50 won’t find them in boots for six 
months to come. As for Susy and her beggarly jointure, she may 
marry again and lose it all to-morrow. 

“ Susy won’t marry; she knows there is her brothers’ education,” 
said Mrs. Marney, with anxious conviction. “ She has Mikey and 
Denny to consider now, and she is not one to forget her own people. 
We all know the colonel’s wishes, and that he meant them to be 
properly taught.” 

“It would have been more to the purpose if the old boy had 
written his -wishes down on lawyer’s paper, with a couple of wit- 
nesses to see them carried out,” said Marney. “I call it a d— d un- 
business-like proceeding — to say nothing of having to pay madame, 
as you propose. I’m getting out of patience with her endless — ” 

“Oh, Michael !” said poor Mary, reproachfully; “madame lent 
me £20 last month; it is not for the rent onlyl” 


AFTERWARDS. 


159 


Not without difficulty was Mikey’s legacy reserved for madame’s 
just claim. If it had not been for her genuine love for the little 
boys and their mother, Madame Du Parc, the sturdy and methodi- 
cal, would long ago have got rid of her unpunctual lodgers, but she 
had grown to love the children, and, above all, the poor lady, whose 
troubles, little by little, had become her own. 

Susy wrote to her mother at once, telling her of herself and of all 
in her home, promising to provide for the boys’ schooling as hereto- 
fore. She was to keep house for Jo, and she had no expense and 
plenty of spare money, she said, and she knew that John in his 
kindness would have wished her to continue what he had so gener- 
ously begun. She missed him sorely, mourned him with a tender, 
grateful heart ; she seemed at first scarcely able to live without him, 
or to have a wish, or to be able to settle the commonest things. He 
had been a man of methodical habits; he had ruled his household, 
and drilled Susanna to his own ideas; she had never stood alone. 
We know she was young and yielding and easy by nature; she had 
learned from him to sort out and arrange her life, her events and 
friends, her feelings and hospitality — to use certain stock phrases to 
herself, which she thought she believed in. Now that he was gone, 
it seemed to Susy as if she had become forever what she had tried 
to be before. 

‘ ‘ Elle etait plus femme que les autres femmes ” has often been 
quoted, and never too often; surely it applied to my heroine as she 
sat in her corner by Jo’s sofa a few weeks after her husband’s death. 
Jo looked haggard, but he was nearly well. Susy in black and in 
her widow’s cap looked far more beautiful than in her colored fash- 
ionable dresses — younger, gentler, less reserved. The western sun- 
shine was coming in at the open window. Jo had fallen asleep, 
and in the stillness, as Susy sat in the low chair by his couch, she 
could also hear the voice of her little Phraisie at play in the garden 
without, and the hum in the distant field, and the sounds coming 
across the lake. 

Josselin liked to have his step-mother near him. Susanna had 
that gift which belongs to some people for taking care of sick peo- 
ple. Tempy was too abrupt and nervous from very affection. Miss 
Bolsover fussed; she also wanted to do too much. Jo found in his 
step-mother the most comforting of nurses. “I dq believe she’s 
made of sticking-plaster,” he used to say. Day by day his strength 
seemed to return, his burning eyes became clear and soft. He rare- 
ly spoke of the accident; but he told them once for all what he 
could remember of it. His father, who was driving, had suddenly 
fainted or fallen from his seat; as he fell, the horse was startled; Jo 

11 


160 


MRS. DYMOND. 


trying to catch the reins, had been thrown from his seat. He lost 
consciousness; once he revived enough to hear George Tyson say- 
ing, “The boat be there, shall we take them home?” and then all 
was as nothing once more, until he awoke in his own bed with 
Tempy hanging over him. 

Nobody pretended to be anxious any longer. Jeffries grinned 
satisfaction at his patient’s progress. When Aunt Fanny suddenly 
appeared with the barouche, announcing that change was now nec- 
essary, and that she had come to carry Jo off then and there, broken 
bones and all, to the Hall, Jo worked himself into a passion. He 
didn’t want to go, he was much better at home. He gave an un- 
earthly groan when his aunt advanced to persuade him in her most 
dulcet tones. 

“You may as well say at once, Jo, that new things have be- 
witched you, that flattery has divided you from old friends, that 
your old home has lost all interest for you,” said Aunt Fanny, great- 
ly startled by his noise, and fairly losing her temper and her eternal 
melodious inflections. 

“I don’t want to be tortured all the way from this to the Hall,” 
cried Jo, with condoning crossness. “ Flattery! why, don’t you flat- 
ter me? you and Aunt Car too?” And then Aunt Fanny leaves the 
room, followed by Tempy in tears trying to soothe her. 

Poor Tempy! the tears rose very easily to her eyes now. 

“I don’t know what has come to Jo and Tempy,” said Miss Bol- 
sover, exasperated on her return. “The influence she has- gained 
over them is most painful, and scarcely to be believed.” 

“Ha! petticoat influence,” says Mr. Bolsover, rashly; “we all 
know what that is — a very powerful thing; I myself could imagine 
it difficult to resist Susanna at times.” . . . 

Miss Bolsover goes into a peal of silvery laughter. “Another 
victim! I told you so, Caroline; another of her victims.” 

“ I don’t know about that,” says Mrs. Bolsover, speaking to her- 
self in her odd, mumbling way. “Victims, victims; Fanny has 
had plenty of victims in her days, now she is too old and too fat to 
charm people any more.” 

“ H’m, h’m! A-li’m, my dear!” says Frederick, with warning signs. 

So Miss Bolsover fortunately kept away from Crowbeck Place, 
indignant alpiost beyond words or expression. Mr. Bolsover him- 
self did not come very often, but when he appeared it was generally 
with a chastened look which suggested vicarious suffering. 

Then things settled down in their new state; Charlie returned no 
more to Bolsover, Jo went back to college; seasons passed on their 
course, winter followed the autumn. It was a cold and bitter sea- 


A WINDOW. 


1C1 


eon. Tempy and her step-mother kept in-doors and by the warm 
fires, while the winds whistled shrill and the snow fell upon the sur- 
rounding fells and moors. But Phraisie, a frolicsome little breath 
of comfort and new hope, would come flying to their arms, and 
when the winter was gone and the soft spring came, piercing the 
frozen ground, Jo, returning home for the Easter vacation, found 
Mikey and Dermy also established for their holidays at Crowbeck, 
and Susy in some perplexity as to what she should do with them 
and how they were to be conveyed home to their mother. It was 
Josselin who suggested something which every one agreed to then 
and there without discussion. They all wanted change of scene, he 
said; they all shrank from London and from Wimpole Street. 
“ You would like to see your mother, wouldn’t you, Mrs. Dymond?” 
said he. “Why cannot we take the boys over?” Even Tempy 
brightened up and approved of the suggestion. 


CHAPTER XVIII. 


AT A WINDOW. 


* l De la Villette 
Dans sa cliarrette 
Suzon bronette 
Ses fours sur le quai , 
Et de Vincennes 
Gros Pierre amene 
Ses fruits , que traine 
JJn dne efftanque. 


“ J'entends Gavotte 
Portant sa hotte 
Crier carotte, 

Panais et chou-four : 

Son cri se mele 
A la voixfrele 
Du noir ramoneurP 
“ Paris.” — Desaugiers. 


One night, as if by magic, the whole party found itself neatly 
packed away in a little omnibus coming from the Northern Station 
at Paris. Mrs. Marney had met her boys, and carried them off 
home to Neuilly in joyful triumph. The rest of the party were 
meanwhile jogging deliberately over the stones to the hotel, Phraisie 
asleep in her mother’s arms, Wilkins buried beneath the parcels and 
sliaws and umbrellas which well-bred people always carry wherever 
they go. 

Jo and Tempy, with their heads out of the windows, were ex- 
claiming, while the shops seemed to jolt past, and lights and public 
buildings ablaze, followed by black spaces crossed with lines of 
lamps. Finally the omnibus turned into a narrow street out of a 
wider thoroughfare. How familiar the echo of the wheels between 
the high houses sounded to Susy’s ears! 


162 


MRS. DYMOND. 


More lights flash; the omnibus stops; the landlord and landlady 
appear in the door-way ; the newly-arrived company is officiously es- 
corted and assisted up the narrow staircase to its apartments; the 
cloth is laid, the candles are lighted. Phraisie’s room and Susy’s 
room are on either side of the sitting-room; Jo and Tempy find 
themselves established across the landing, with more tall windows 
shaded by muslin blinds and red curtains, and all the echoes of Paris 
without. 

The hotel had been recommended by Madame Du Parc as quiet 
and convenient. Their apartments were on the third floor, small 
enough and shabby enough compared to the splendor of Crowbeck 
Place ; but Mrs. Dymond suddenly felt as if she should like noth- 
ing so well as to spend all that remained to her of her life in this 
little noisy place. She had seen her little Phraisie laid snug and 
peaceful in her bed ; she had unpacked some of the many bags and 
parcels (how many more she had to unpack of different shapes and 
sizes than when she had first come abroad some four years ago!). 
Her own bed was in a curtained alcove, with griffin claws to hang 
the curtains to ; a gray marble table stood in the centre of the room ; 
the prints on the walls were of Napoleon, and Poniatowski in Pol- 
ish boots and a blue helmet; the walls were of faded red, shabby 
even by candle-light. Susanna thought the place a little paradise. 
Shabbiness is as much of a treat to people. overdone with luxury as 
a silk gown is to a little Cinderella out of the ashes. 

Susy opened her casement wide and leaned out, gazing straight 
down the dark precipice of walls and windows beneath her own 
with the sense of new breath and life which most people feel when 
they breathe the pleasant foreign -air. 

With this breath of relief she leaned out farther and farther, 
looking up and down the chattering, half-lighted street at the peo- 
ple passing by, so indifferent and unconscious of her existence, at 
the lamps radiating from the broad boulevard beyond. There was 
some heap of shadowy blackness at the other end of the street, but 
Susy had to wait till morning light to realize that the black shadow 
was that of the church of St. Rocli. 

“ Susy, Susy, come to supper,” cries Tempy from the next room, 
where she and Josselin are already hungrily established, and beginning 
to help the fishes and fried potatoes by the light of the two tall tapers. 

Very early next morning Susanna woke agaiu, for she had not 
closed her window all the night, and the sun was shining in with 
dazzling rays. All the world’s voice seemed calling up to her from 
the street below ; water, fruit, flowers, old clothes were being pro- 
claimed with different intonations. Now by the bright daylight, as 


AT A WINDOW. 


168 


she leaned against the wooden bar, she could see into the stone 
depths below and the tall houses rising with their many balconies 
and shutters. The Rue du Dauphin is a sort of sunshine trap lead- 
ing to the Tuileries gardens, that were all festive with spring be- 
hind the railing and set with orange-trees, beyond which rose the 
glittering mansard roofs and pinnacles of the old palace, where the 
Henrys and Louises ruled so long, now followed by the Napoleons 
in turn. At the other end of the street the church of St. Roch was 
standing in the early shadow still, like some huge mountain with 
flaming peaks. Already its doors were swinging, and people were 
ascending and descending the great flights of steps; the bells were 
tolling, the clocks were chiming, the people going in and coming 
out to their work again ; the old women were sitting huddled with 
their cloaks and their foot-warmers at the church doors, with chap- 
lets and religious newspapers to sell; the carts and omnibuses had 
long since been rolling ; the indescribably gay and busy chorus 
reached the travellers in their high lodging. 

The little party could scarcely tear itself away from the windows 
through which so much was to be seen and heard. Mrs. Marney 
had promised to come to Susy, for Marney was starting off on some 
one of his expeditions, and she meant to join her at the hotel with 
the boys. Josselin went out, but Susy and Tempy, with Pliraisie 
between them (absorbed in the contemplation of another little girl 
at play on a balcony opposite), spent their first morning looking ouc 
of window. As the day went on the company became more and 
more varied ; they watched the French women floating by, walking 
with quick and pretty steps and with neat black skirts, leading 
children drolly attired, elaborate and bedizened, and well-mannered. 
“Mamma, look at the funny boy,” says Pliraisie, pointing to a lit- 
tle fellow with an enormous collar covered with anchors and em- 
blems, who was advancing up the street .with a dignified and mon- 
key-like bearing. The country nurses also go by with their bam- 
binos, and long cloaks, and cap ribbons; coachmen jog past with 
their white oil-cloth hats; a gendarme passes, cocked hat, epaulettes, 
white gloves and all, arm-in-arm with his wife ; finally, up come 
Dermy and Mikey at a trot. Susy, seeing the little boys down be- 
low, followed by her mother, who had stopped to speak to some- 
body in the street, went to the door and looked over the stairs, as 
people do who are on a holiday, with time to look out for one an- 
other. Mrs. Marney came toiling up the winding staircase, breath- 
less, but still conversing. 

“ Do come up. Come up, I tell you,” Susy heard her say. ^ 
daughter will like to see you, and we can arrange our plans.” 


164 


MRS. DYMOND. ' 


She heard the little boys also joining hospitably from below: 
“M. Max, do— do come; you shall not go,” from Dermy; and then 
Mrs. Marney, looking up, sees Mrs. Dymond on the landing, and 
calls, 

“Here we are, Susanna; we are bringing Max du Parc to see 
you.” 

Susanna retreated gently and rather shyly into the dignified safe- 
guard of her own room, whither they all followed her, chattering 
and clattering up the wooden staircase. They brought with them 
Du Parc, who had not meant to come in, but who could not help 
himself, for Mrs. Marney went ahead announcing him, while one 
boy held firm by his coat-tails, and the other by his hand. Susy, 
willing to please her mother, and to show her guest that she was 
not unmindful of all his kindness to her family, came forward in 
her crape and blackness with her hand out. Du Parc, who was shy 
and French, bowed very low without noticing the friendly gesture 
and the outstretched hand ; and then Susy seemed to remember sud- 
denly how stiffly he had always met her advances. She blushed, 
withdrew, and turned shy in an instant, and the young man saw 
with surprise that the color was rising in her pale cheeks. He had 
imagined her belonging to another world and phase of life far 
distant from his own simple estate, and absolutely indifferent to 
his presence or absence. Was it possible that such blushes some- 
times flashed out of marble statues — that such looks sometimes 
brighten and then die away when the gods come in presence with 
mortal beings? 

The little party started forth that morning, as so many have done 
before and since, with open eyes for the new sights and men and 
manners — Jo, Tempy, Susanna by her mother, and the two boys 
walking on either side of Du Parc, who was on his way to a book* 
seller’s in the Rue du BaG. What a walk it was across the gardens 
by the great Place of the Carrousel, with its triumphal mythology; 
then by the quais and the noble chain of palaces they reach the 
river, and so cross the bridge to the Quai Voltaire, where Mrs. 
Marney had some mysterious business to transact for Marney at a 
furniture dealer’s. The business began with some discussion on 
the door-step, it had then to be carried on in private into the dimmer 
recesses of the store, among the bloated chairs, the gilt and orna- 
mented legs of the Capet dynasty, and the prim, slim, stinted graces 
of the early Napoleonic times. Whatever it was (Susy would not 
ask what it was), the discussion took a long and confidentially ex- 
plosive turn ; but the young folks waiting outside upon the quai were 
in no hurry. They watched the river, and the steamers, and the 


AT A WINDOW. 


165 


crowds upon the quai, where the lime-trees were coming into leaf, 
where the shops were in full flower, and the many twinkling win- 
dows were full of varied hues and shapes. Curious, wonderful, 
century-old stores of goods, scattered from the past, lined these 
streets and shop-fronts. Looking-glasses reflected the blouses and 
the white caps passing by in the place of courtly splendors; there 
was silent music in tattered covers, and there were timeless clocks, 
and flower-pots empty of flowers, and uncut books ; fans which had 
been lying asleep for a hundred years still ready at a touch to start 
into fluttering life, and wreaths of lovely old lace — there were won- 
ders galore to amuse the country ladies. Susy looked with longing 
eyes at the delicate festoons and ivory - looking heaps of lace. 
Mechlin, with its light sprays flowering on soft net, carelessly 
thrown into a china bowl; the point d’AlenQon, like jeweller’s work, 
chased upon the delicate honeycomb, devised by the human bees 
who had worked at it year after year. Perhaps also some florid 
scroll from Italy would be hanging from a rusty nail, with careful 
pattern travelling from one tendril to another. 

“ What lovely lace 1” cried Susanna. “ Look, Tempy, at the shells 
upon it; how exquisite they are!” 

“Shall I ask the price for you?” says Tempy, instantly bursting 
into the low shop with its dark panes, where an old Rembrandt-like 
woman sits keeping watch. “ Combien?” cries Tempy, in her con- 
fident British tones. 

“Four hundred francs! Bocoo tro!” cries the young lady, dash- 
ing out again into the warm sunshine. “Did you ever hear of such 
extortion ?” cries Tempy, whose experience of lace does not reach 
very much beyond her tuckers. 

“It is a great deal of money,” says Susanna. 

“Quite out of the question, Susanna,” cries Tempy, decidedly, 
and her step-mother blushed a little at the rebuke. 

Sometimes Tempy’s voice sounds so like the colonel’s that Susy 
could almost imagine he was there to control her still. 

“Why is it quite out of the question?” says Jo, stopping short; 
“ sixteen pounds won’t ruin the family altogether. What did your 
new habit cost, Tempy?” 

“A habit!” says Tempy, with a laugh, “that is something one 
really cares to have; but Susanna will not care to wear lace again, 
Josselin.” 

“Aunt Fanny is all over lace, and stuffed birds, and things,” 
says Jo. 

‘ * She is not a widow, ” Tempy answers, gravely. “Jo, you should 
remember before you say such things.” 


166 


MRS. DYMOND. 

Mrs. Marney come out of her shop at that minute, and Max du 
Parc, who seemed only to have waited for her return, took leave of 
the party. They asked him to come again. He hesitated, and sud- 
denly said, yes he would come, and he walked away with a swing- 
ing step along the quai. They saw him disappearing under the 
lime-trees, looking across the river as he went along. 


CHAPTER XIX. 

INCENSE AND VIOLETS. 

“ Droop , droop no more or hang the head , 

Ye roses almost withered , 

New strength and newer purple get , 

Each here declining violet .” — Herrick. 

Du Parc came, shyly at first, because they had asked him to do 
so, but very soon he got into the habit of coming as a matter of 
course. The English ladies were not used to Paris and its ways. 
Du Parc acted as their guide and leader, thanks to whom they en- 
joyed many a pleasant expedition and sight of the old city, many an 
amusing experience. They had one other acquaintance, a Mr. Bag- 
ginal, at the Embassy, who was from their own county and glad to 
be of use to them; but Max knew more of Paris and of its aspects 
than the young attache, who moved in fashionable and restricted 
circles, and brought invitations and callers and bouquets, but who 
was of little use as a cicerone. . . . 

How delightful is the dinning sound of a melodious church bell 
going in the early morning sunshine ; it comes floating into the room 
and seems to be a part of the very morning and of its joy, a hint of 
other things to heighten the feast of life. 

“Well,” says Mrs. Marney, who has just come in as usual with 
her boys and her friend Du Parc, “what ate we going to do?” 

An exclamation from Tempy, who is also, as usual, leaning from 
the window, replies to this pertinent question. 

“ Come here! What is this?” she cries. 

All along the Rue du Dauphin, from every quarter, people are as- 
sembling in crowds that gather thicker every moment — youthful 
white figures led by parents and relations in their Sunday clothes, 
boys in shiny shoes and white trousers, girls dressed like brides. 

“It is the premierecommunion, ” says Mrs. Marney, all in one word. 
“ Susy, you should take them to see it. Let Wilkins go too, dear, 
and I will mind Phraisie.” 


INCENSE AND VIOLETS. 


167 


Phraisie thought herself quite old enough for any amount of sight- 
seeing, but she was never happier than when alone with her grand- 
mother, and she made no objection. 

“But all of us in this crowd, mamma?” said Susy, doubtfully. 

“Max will take the boys. Won’t you, Max, like a good fellow?” 
cries Mrs. Marney, determined that everybody shall see everything 
that is to be seen anywhere; and so the party, after some further 
demur, starts off. 

Max goes first with the boys, then come Susy and Tempy in their 
black dresses; then follows Jo, with his hands in his pockets. He 
wears a Scotch cap, a rough, cut-away coat, a pair of knickerbockers 
— less commonly worn in those days than they are now. The tidy 
French people turn to stare at him, ejaculate “ Anglais!” They also 
look at Susy with more respectfully admiring eyes. Old St. Roch 
had prepared a welcoming benediction for them all, heretics and 
Catholics alike, that morning. The centre aisle was full of a white 
snow-storm of muslin figures. The church was crowded from end 
to end; the altars were lighted, the candles were burning, hundreds 
and hundreds of heads were bent in childish adoration, the little, 
restless, snowy figures swayed and tossed their •white veils. The 
chorister boys were clustering round about the altars, the priests 
were passing up and down the middle of the church. The old 
abbe, in his silver and embroidered shining dress, leaned from the 
pulpit and seemed to be calling a blessing upon the eager congrega- 
tion. By the high altar stood the cure of the Madeleine, a noble- 
looking figure, also in splendid robes. The sisters and nuns w t 1io 
had had the teaching of so many of the children were keeping guard 
over their flock from beneath their bent white coiffes as they knelt. 
The priests beat time, processions come swaying from one chapel 
and another bearing virgins and saints embroidered on satin with 
golden fringes. The great organ strikes up, and all the children’s 
voices break out into a shrill, sweet, morning hymn, as the whole 
dazzling tide sweeps in procession towards the high altar, carrying 
its thousand lights and emblematic candles, and followed by crowd- 
ing parents, friends, sightseers. Then after a pause another dis- 
course begins in sing-song from another pulpit. A monk in his 
Benedictine dress stands up to address the assembled congregation. 
His words are full of . affectionate warnings, exhortations, incite- 
ments to religious life in the midst of the world and its temptations. 
He raises his worn hands as he appeals to his listeners — to the pale, 
motionless sisters, the rosy, awe-struck children. It struck one man 
present strangely and sadly to hear these passionate warnings from 
those who had not lived, to those whose life was not yet begun. 


168 


MRS. DYMOtfD. 


He looked round at the sea of faces, at the blooming company of 
youthful postulants, at the nuns who stood with bent coilfes and 
folded hands by the column where he was standing. Poor souls! 
what hearts had they wounded, what unfair advantages had they 
grasped from the world? What had all this to do with them? . . . 
And a sudden revolt rose in his mind, an indignant outcry against 
the creed which superadde'd these cruel mortifications and sufferings 
to the stresses and starvation of daily life, where the poor, day by 
day, are expiating the ease of the rich. He thought of Caron’s teach- 
ing, of his wider horizons ; some strange impatience came over him, 
he would wait no longer in this atmosphere of artificial light and 
smoke; the incense stifled him; he had an odd feeling that if he 
stayed he should find himself standing up protesting against the 
golden pulpit. What was that written up on the wall, Mene, mene? 
Was the church feasting in pomp while multitudes were dying of 
hunger and ignorance? There stood his English friends in a shy 
group, the beautiful young mother with eyes full of tears, the young 
lady with an odd scowling expression; let them look on; how could 
they know the meaning of it all, or realize the commonest truths of 
life? “May they never know,” Du Parc repeated to himself. 
“Go to your sister,” he said, suddenly, to the boys. “I will wait 
outside.” 

Susy saw Du Parc go; she was not surprised; but she was glad 
nevertheless to find him still waiting in the door- way when she came 
away followed by her little court. Her eyes were dazzled, her ears 
ringing with the music and the voices of the people : the great clouds 
of incense, the thousand lights of the tapers, all intoxicated and ex- 
cite$ her. Her heart beat, she looked up with almost childish de- 
light. Du Parc looked grave, impenetrable, very handsome as he 
stood in the shadow of the arch. As Susy turned to Tempy, who 
was following, she wondered to find her cold, with a look of some- 
thing which was almost disgust in her face. Good old Wilkins 
herself could not have seemed more scandalized by “them popes 
and virgins,” as she called them. Jo followed; he had been well 
amused, admiring and scrutinizing the ceremony from a more artis- 
tic and dilettante point of view T ; now he was staring at the church, 
at the people, at the crowds in the street. Susanna stood for a mo- 
ment on the steps looking out. Not long afterwards she remem- 
bered this minute, so strangely to be repeated .by a grim freak of 
chance. Here were peaceful crowds in a fanciful excitement and 
ecstasy, in a rapture of white muslin and candle-light, shaken by the 
echoing organ - sounds. The next time she stood there she was 
watching these same people fighting for their lives,- flying from 


INCENSE AND VIOLETS. 


169 


death — worshippers at another shrine, fiercer, more terrible, and yet 
not less remorseless in its expiations and demands. 

“ Here you. are!” said Du Parc, with a sort of impatient cheerful- 
ness. “ Well, now, you have seen the great ceremony, and the abbe 
and his eleven hundred virgins. They call him l’Abbe des Demoi- 
selles in the Quartier.” 

“ Why did you go away?” Susy asked. 

“I cannot stand it — the smell of incense always disagrees with 
me. You, madame, look as if you did not mind being half suffocat- 
ed; but you will like the lilacs down in the gardens better still.” 

“ It seemed to me very beautiful,” said Susy, with dancing eyes. 
‘ ‘ My daughter here disapproves of it as much as you do. It seemed 
all so wonderful to me — so beautiful, so full of interest.” 

Tempy looked daggers. She had a vague idea Susanna was going 
over to the Homan Catholic persuasion, that Du Parc was a Jesuit 
pretending indifference, that the whole thing was a plot got up to 
influence and persuade her too-yielding, too-persuadable step-moth- 
er. She, too, came down step by step with the crowd, following the 
stream of people. Some seemed still in a sort of dream, some, on 
the contrary, wide awake and most keenly alive to the dignity of 
the moment, to the splendor of their sons in varnished boots, with 
fringed ribbons on their arms, of their daughters in white muslin, 
with veils and white caps, and a general unction of new clothes and 
new blessings. And indeed there can be but one feeling when the 
boys and girls at the outset of life come up one by one with beaming 
faces to ask a blessing upon their future from the old, time-worn 
bishop and pastor, whose own life is so nearly at an end. This was 
what Susy said as they walked down the crowded street which- led 
to the Tuileries gardens, when Du Parc again made some bitter 
joke. “I am like the gamin who put aside the faith of a Pascal 
with a joke,” said Du Parc. “I’m afraid it is no use talking to 
me. ” 

The little shops were bristling with their treasures, the people 
were standing in their door-ways to see the company disperse, the 
carts and carriages cumbering the road. They passed a flower-cart 
standing in a gutter; a countrywoman with a red handkerchief on 
her head was changing the beautiful bunches of fragrance into half- 
pennies and pennies. It was another version of the old lamps for 
new. Many of the flowers were delicate, such as we grow with 
elaborate care in greenhouses and hothouses— white lilacs, and pink 
carnations with their long blue stalks, some sort of early flowering 
poppy, pale and feathery, and then narcissus and roses in heaps, and 
white daisies in their modest garb, looking as if they, too, had been 


170 


MRS. DYMOND. 


to their first communion. The violets in their fragrant heaps were 
piled together, all their sweetness tied with a wisp of straw. Su- 
sanna stopped, exclaiming, but Du Parc hurried her on. “Pass on, 
pass on, madame,” he said, almost impatiently; “you are stopping 
the way.” Again Tempy drew herself up with a look of absolute 
amazement and impatience; what did this man, this drawing-mas- 
ter, mean by speaking in this imperious tone to her step-mother? She 
deliberately stopped, and began to ask the price of the flowers, and 
bought a bunch of somewhat faded rosebuds which the flower-wom- 
an thrust into her hand ; the others waited while she bargained, not 
that she cared for pennies, but from an Englishwoman’s sense of 
duty. 

“Why didn’t you get violets?” said Susy; “they seemed so 
sweet. ” 

A minute after they were crossing the Rue de Rivoli to the side 
gate of the Tuileries gardens. 

’ “ One crosses at the risk of one’s life,” said Susanna, smiling and 
turning to speak to Du Parc — but he was gone. When he rejoined 
them a minute after at the iron gate he was carrying a huge bunch 
of the sweet violets Susanna had liked. 

“I ventured also to add some lilies -of -the -valley; such flowers 
were created for you,” he said. 

There was something indescribable in his tone which startled her; 
she looked up, she saw a look of such bright admiration, such pride 
and homage combined, that her thanks suddenly failed her. 

“Violets and lilies,” said Tempy, wanting to say something to 
break the momentary silence, which seemed almost significant; 
“ violets are not so nice as roses.” 

“Unhappy France has heard more than enough of them, made- 
moiselle,” said Du Parc, recovering himself quickly, but with a very 
well pleased expression still showing in his dark eyes. “This is 
the first time for years I have cared to buy any ; but to - day they 
have seemed to me emblems of peace and sweetness instead of greed 
and wicked rapacity.” 

Susy could not answer all this. She, a mother, a widow who 
should h^ve known life, to be silenced suddenly, confused like a 
very school-girl— it was not to be endured. 


ST. DAMIAN AND OTHERS. 


171 


CHAPTER XX. 

ST. DAMIAN AND OTHERS. 

“ . . . that silver sphei'e 
Whose intense lamp nari'ows 
In the white dawn clear .” — Shelley. 

All their time was not given to Paris, delightful as Paris was; it 
was a .pleasure to escape the city on those glorious spring days. 
Marney was still away, and Susy and her children often found their 
way to the Villa Du Parc, and from thence to the Bois de Boulogne 
or the outlying country places. Little Phraisie used to remain with 
her grandmother, the others would stroll farther afield ; and Du Parc, 
who so rarely left his work, who never allowed himself a holiday, 
now seemed to have nothing better to do than to escort his mother’s 
friend and her companions. One afternoon he took them to a vil- 
lage about a mile off ; he led the way with his big stick along the 
high-road for a time, then across a cabbage-field, then by a country 
cross-road leading to a village not far from the Seine. There was 
an old church, one of the very oldest in the neighborhood, that he 
wanted them to see. He had done an etching of it for the “Beaux 
Arts.” 

The lamp was burning dimly in the little church before the high 
altar, where a black verger stood in his robes. There was a sil- 
ver dove hanging from the middle of the roof, and a gilt sun, with 
brassy rays like an organ, which shone upon the altar. Little pict- 
ures, bright-colored, miraculous, covered the bare walls with repre- 
sentations of benevolent marvels — heavenly hands and protruding 
arms interposing from the clouds to prevent disaster here on earth ; 
runaway horses arrested, falling houses caught iu the act. There 
was a huge black crucifix with a colored figure of Death — a some- 
what terrible and striking reminder to the living of the future and the 
past. More cheerful tinselled ornaments were piled upon the altar, 
whose fine cloth was guarded by a checkered linen top. The wooden 
pulpit was painted to look like precious veined marble, so was the 
battered old confessional with the thumb-marks of the penitents. 
Outside the little church, in the Place, the cocks and hens cackled, 
becketed in the grass; a stream ran close by the opened door with 
a pleasant wash of water. They had passed the cure’s house close 
at hand, with its laburnums, and the field beyond where the linen 


172 


HRS. DYMOND. 


strips were bleaching, and the children squatting in the dust, and 
the man with the wooden shoes, and the oilskin hat, and the torn 
blouse, breaking flints in the sunshine. Everything outside looked 
hot and bright and delicate and business-like, while everything in- 
side was dark and dreamily fervent. To people accustomed from 
childhood to Catholic chapels, the scent of the lingering incense 
seems to be the breath of the prayers and hymns of the pious who 
have lingered here generation after generation on their way from 
the streets and the sunshine outside, to the quiet church-yard across 
the field. 

Max looked round to-day with friendly eyes at his old playmates, 
St. Cosmo and St. Damian, those favorite martyrs — at St. Dominic 
in his black robe, St. Catharine with her pointing finger, St. Barbara 
with her wheel, good St. Ursula with a detachment of maidens, 
standing by the well-remembered sketch of the Day of Judgment, 
where six or seven just persons, escorted by two virtuous little angels, 
were being trumpeted up to heaven, while over a dozen wicked 
were being swallowed then and there by a huge green monster. 
All these quaint, familiar things hung undisturbed as they had hung 
in the young man’s recollection for the quarter of a century he could 
look back to. The bright silver hearts and tokens, the tallow can- 
dles peacefully smoking on the triangle — all meant childhood, and 
familiar faces, and every-day innocent life to him. He did not feel 
here in the little village church as at St. Roch on the day of the 
great celebration. There he had chafed and revolted. Tempy her- 
self could not have felt more repelled than Max du Parc; but this 
was his whole childhood, one of his simplest and most intimate as- 
sociations. How curiously the same emblems affect different minds. 
To Tempy they meant terrors and superstition; to Jo a picturesque 
and characteristic episode of foreign travel; and to Susanna they 
meant something like a strange dream of reality, like an image of 
all that was in her heart just then. There was the charm, the in- 
tense attraction of that which was not and must never be her creed; 
and also a terror of that remorseless law which spared not, which 
accepted martyrdom and self-renunciation as the very beginning of 
the lesson of life— of that life which, since the world began, had been 
crying out so passionately for its own, for its right to exist, to feel, 
to be free. This afternoon Mrs. Dymond seemed to have caught 
something of Du Parc’s antagonistic mood that day at St. Roch’s; 
she was thinking how these pale saints had turned one by one from 
the sunshine and the storms of daily life, from the seasons in their 
course, from the interests and warm fires of home, to a far-away 
future, of which these sad tapers, winking and smoking, these glit- 


ST. DAMIAN AND OTIIERS. 


173 


tering silver trinkets, were the symbols; they had given earnest and 
passionate prayers in the place of love, and living desires, and the 
longing of full hearts; they had taken pain and self-inflicted suffer- 
ings in place of the natural submission and experience of life, and 
the restraints of others’ rights and others’ needs. 

“I can’t think how people can endure such superstition,” said 
Tempy, flouncing out into the porch. “Come, Jo, it makes me 
sick,” and she nearly tumbled over an old couple who had been 
kneeling in the shadow of the door-way. 

Susy blushed up, as she often did, for Tempy’s brusquene, and 
looked anxiously at Du Parc, who had caught the young lady by 
the arm as she stumbled. 

Tempy seemed to rouse some latent opposition in Max du Parc. 

“Take care,” he said, in English; “go gently, and don’t upset 
those who are still on their knees. After all, there are not many 
people left upon their knees now,” he added, as they came out to- 
gether, “and I don’t see that much is gained by having everybody 
running about the streets instead.” 

“At all events it is something gained to hear people speaking the 
real truth, and saying only what they really think, as we do in our 
churches,” said Tempy, with one of her stares. 

Du Parc made her a low bow. 

‘ ‘ If that is' the case, mademoiselle, I shall certainly come over to 
England and get myself admitted into your religion by a reverend 
with a white tie.” 

Tempy didn’t answer, but walked on. 

Jo burst out laughing. Susy didn’t laugh; she was in this strange 
state of emotion, excitement, she could not laugh. Something had 
come to her, something which in all her life she had never felt as 
now, a light into the morning, a tender depth in the evening sky, a 
meaning to the commonest words and facts. There is a feeling 
which comes home to most of us at one time or another; philoso- 
phers try to explain it, poets to write it down only, musicians can 
make it into music, it is like a horizon to the present — a sense of 
the suggestion of life beyond its actual din and rough shapings. 
This feeling gives a meaning to old stones and fluttering rags, to 
the heaps and holes on the surface of the earth, to the sad and com- 
mon things as well as to those which are brilliant and successful. 
Had this supreme revelation come to Susanna, now ? or was it only 
that in France the lights are brighter, the aspects of life more de- 
lightful— that with the sight of all this natural beauty and vivacity 
some new spring of her life had been touched which irradiated and 
colored everything? 


174 


MRS. DYMOND. 


But it was not France, it was the poetry of to-day and the remem- 
brance of yesterday which softened her sweet looks, which touched 
her glowing cheek. It was something which Susy did not know of, 
which she had never guessed at until now, widow though she was, 
mother though she was. 

Susanna for the last few years had been so accustomed to silence, 
to a sort of gentle but somewhat condoning courtesy, that it seemed 
to her almost strange to be specially addressed and considered. 

Tempy could not understand it either. Once or twice Susanna 
met the girl’s surprised, half-laughing, half-disapproving glance, and 
the elder woman would blush and looked amused, appealing; she 
seemed to be asking her step-daughter’s leave to be brilliant for once, 
to answer the friendly advances of the French gentlemen who 
called with red ribbons, and the French ladies with neatly-poised 
bonnets. One or two invitations came for them through Mr. Bag- 
ginal. Sometimes Susy, animated, forgetting, would look so differ- 
ent, so handsome, that Tempy herself was taken aback. Mrs. Dy- 
mond’s black dignities became her — the long lappets falling, the 
silken folds so soft, so thick, that moved with her as she moved. 
She had dressed formerly to please her husband, who, in common 
with many men, hated black, and liked to see his wife and his daugh- 
ter in a cheerful rainbow of pink and green and blue and gilt but- 
tons. Now that she was a widow she wore plain, long dresses, soft 
and black, suiting her condition and becoming to her sweet and 
graceful ways. She had bought herself a straw hat, for the sun was 
burning in the avenues of Neuilly, and with her round hat she had 
given up her widow’s cap. A less experienced hand than Max du 
Parc might have wished to set this graceful blackness down forever 
as it stood on' the green outside the little chapel that summer’s day. 
The children were still playing, the geese were coming up to be fed, 
the dazzle of light and shade made a sweet out-of-door background 
to the lovely light and shade of Susy’s wistful pale face as she stood 
facing them all, and looking up at the carved stone front of the 
shabby little church. 

They walked home slowly, two by two. Tempy, who had not yet 
forgiven Du Parc his religion or his bow, took her brother’s arm. 

Two figures that were hobbling along the path a little way in 
front of them, stopped their halting progress, and turned to watch 
the youthful company go by. They were forlorn and worn and 
sad, and covered with rags and dirt ; the woman carried a bundle 
on a stick, the man dragged his steps through the spring, limping as 
he went. 

“Yes,” said Max, answering Susy’s look £)f pity, “one is happy 


ST. DAMIAN AND OTHERS. 


175 


and forgets everything else, and then one meets some death’s-head 
like this to remind one of the truth. Think of one man keeping 
all that for himself,” and he pointed back to a flaming villa with 
pink turrets beyond the field, “ and another reduced to such shreds 
of life.” 

“I don’t think people in England are ever quite so miserable,” 
said Susy. 

“You think not?” said Max. “ I have seen people quite as dirty, 
quite as wretched in London. I remember one day at Caron’s lodg- 
ing in Brompton — ” 

Susy wondered why he stopped short in the middle of his sen- 
tence. Max had suddenly remembered when it was he had seen 
two wretched beggars thrust from a carriage door, and by whom. 
“And in Soho, near where you lived,” the young man continued, 
after a moment, speaking in a somewhat constrained voice and tone, 

‘ * any night, I think, you might have seen people as sad and wretch- 
ed as these. I used to go to a street in that quarter for my dinner 
very often, and while I dined they walked about outside. Once,” 
he added, more cheerfully, as another remembrance came into his 
mind, “ I met a member of your family, madame, at my dining-place, 
Monsieur Charles Bolsover. Poor fellow,” said Max, returning to 
his French, ‘ ‘ I hope he is in happier conditions than he was then 
— he had a friend whom I met afterwards and who took me to see 
him. He seemed in a doleful state. ” 

“Were you then present on that dreadful occasion?” said Susan- 
na, turning pale. “Oh! Monsieur Du Parc, he had been drinking 
to forget his trouble!” 

“What, madame, even you,” said Max — “do you find nothing 
kinder to say of the poor boy? Drinking! He had not been drink- 
ing any more than I had — he was ill, he was in a fever for a week 
afterwards. I used to go and sit with him in his friend’s lodgings. 
. . . They told me the story.” . . . Max glanced at Tempy, who was 
walking ahead laughing, and twirling her parasol — “Forgive me,” 
he said, “lam meddling with what is not my concern l” 1 

“But it concerns me, Monsieur Du Parc,” said Susy, trembling 
very much. “ It concerns me very, very nearly if Charlie has been 
unjustly accused— if he was ill, poor boy, and we did not know it.” 

“ It is a fact, madame,” said Max, dryly; “ if you were to ask his 
friend, the Rev. White, he will tell you the same thing. Your neph- 
ew is not the first of us who has been overcome by an affair of the 
heart. I gathered from him that your — that you disapproved of 
his suit.” 

“ My husband was afraid to trust his daughter’s happiness to any 

12 


176 


MRS. DYMOND. 


one of whom we had heard so much that was painful,” said Mrs. 
Dymond, coldly, and remembering herself. 

Max civilly assented. 

“A father must judge best for his child, ’’she continued, melting 
as he froze, and speaking with an unconscious appeal in her voice 
and her eyes. Why was it that she felt as if Du Parc’s opinion 
mattered so much? She could not bear him to misjudge things, to 
think any one cold or hard. 

“Of course you have to consider what is best,” said the young 
man, softening to her gentleness; “ but believe me that is not a bad 
young fellow. Poor boy, it was a heart of gold. I can scarcely 
imagine the young lady having inspired such a devotion,” he said, for 
a moment forgetting the near relationship between the two women; 
“ but to me she seems strangely fortunate.” 

“Ah! You don’t know her,” said Susy, eagerly; “you don’t 
know how noble she is, how good, how lovable. ” 

“What would you have, madame ?” said Du Parc, laughing. 
“Of you I am not afraid, but of the miss I am in terror, and she 
detests me too. Ask madame your mother.” 

They had come to the gates of the villa by this ; Phraisie appeared 
in the door-way with madame *to welcome them back. Mrs. Mar- 
ney’s voice was heard calling from within. Max was not over- 
pleased to see a visitor under the tree waiting the ladies’ return. It 
was their North-country neighbor, Mr. Bagginal from the Embassy, 
who had been making himself agreeable to madame in the mean- 
while. He had a scheme for a walk in the wood at St. Cloud, and 
a dinner. The court was there and the gardens closed, but the 
young man with some pride produced an order of admission. 

“ Thank you, we shall like it very much indeed,” says Tempy. 

Susy looked at Du Parc. “ Shall you have time to come, too?” 
she asked. 

“ Monsieur Caron is in the studio waiting for you, Max,” said his 
mother; “he has got his pocket full of proclamations, as usual,” 
and without answering Mrs. Dymond, Du Parc slowly turned and 
walked into the studio. 


ALMSGIVING. 


177 


CHAPTER XXL 

ALMSGIVING. 

u In that new world which is the old. 1 ’ 

As the actors pass across the stage of life and play their respect- 
ive parts, it is not difficult at the outset to docket them with their 
different characters — a soldier, a parson, an artist, a lawyer, a lover, 
a heroine, a law-giver, a widow, and so forth. , 

But presently, after the play has gone on for a little while (on the 
stage of life it is not the play that ends, but the actors who come 
and go), we begin to see that, although some of us may be suited to 
our parts, there are others whose natures are ill-fitted to their role, 
and very often we find the performers suddenly playing away in 
their own natural characters instead of those which they are sup- 
posed to represent, to the very great confusion of the drama which 
is going on. 

Here is the lawyer making love to his client instead of drawing . 
up her will; the parson fighting his bishop instead of guarding his 
flock; the soldier preaching sermons; the actor taking his part in 
serious earnest, and blessing his people with unction. A hundred 
instances come to one’s mind of fiddlers and tailors set to rule great 
kingdoms, with what tragic ill-luck, alas! we all remember. Was 
not one mechanician born to a throne, whose life paid for his idio- 
syncrasies? And, again, have we not heard of a Spinoza patiently 
at work upon his lenses earning his daily pittance, a true king 
among men, one whose wise and noble thoughts still rule the suc- 
ceeding generations? Other instances will occur to us all of trav- 
esties still more incongruous. A priest serving his king before his 
God, a poet, with wilder blood and genius than his compeers, sit- 
ting with them at St. Stephen’s upon a dusty cushion, which he 
presently flings in their faces, and, in generous wrath and excite- 
ment, goes off to die, fighting for liberty, under the blue sky of 
Greece. 

When Max du Parc, the son of a dreamer and of a downright and 
practical woman, found himself started in life in the little studio at 
the end of his mother’s garden, he was certainly to blame in that he 
did not keep with peaceful devotion to the career into which Fate 
had launched him, with so little effort on his own part. His en- 
gravings were excellent, but still more so were his etchings, boldly 


178 


MRS. DYMOND. 


worked out, remarkable for their force, their color (and such a term 
may often be used with justice even where black and white alone 
are used). He had received his red ribbon with the rest of them for 
work done during the last two years, for medals gained at exhibi- 
tions for etchings, some of which were now hanging in gilt frames 
at St. Cloud among the eagles. Among others, he had worked for 
money as well as for love. The day before, Susanna, seeing one of 
his most successful prints in a shop-window, had blushed up pain- 
fully and looked away. Du Parc saw her turn crimson; he guess- 
ed that she had recognized his work; he felt as if he could gladly 
tear the picture with its insolent Bacchantes from its place, and de- 
stroy it then and there forever. 

Susy guessed what was passing in his mind. 

“I have never lived among artists,” she said. “I know there 
are many things I do not understand; but I have lately learned,” 
she added, gently, “how beautiful, how wonderful it all is, and I 
shall always be grateful to you for teaching Jo.” 

And Du Parc turned a searching look upon her, though he did 
not answer. Perhaps if his art had meant less to him it might have 
led him further still; it was something beyond color, beyond form 
that he wanted, in his work as in his life, which haunted him at 
times and made him ashamed of mere clever successes. 

All this moralizing equally applies to my heroine, Susanna, a 
woman of natural aptitude and impressionability, placed by no 
unkind fate in a peaceful and prosperous position. And now the 
moment had come when she was to play her touching part of a 
mourning Dido no longer, and lo! flinging away the veils and the 
dignity of widowhood, wiping the natural tears, she found herself 
true to her nature — not false to her past; alive, not dead, as she 
imagined, existing still, not having ceased to feel, a human being, 
not an image in a looking-glass: not remembering only, but sub- 
mitting to the great law of life, which is stronger and less narrow 
than any human protest and lamentation. 

Once more Mrs. Dymond was leaning from her high window, 
impatiently scanning the figures coming and going along the pave- 
ment. Why did he keep them? The day was passing, the hours 
were waning. She was the most impatient of the party. There 
sat Jo, absorbed in his painting. He was trying to copy the great 
blue china pot he had brought home from the quai, and the pink 
poppies that Tempy had stuck into it, with their blue shadows and 
their silver-green leaves. Jo had a natural taste for still life. His 
step-mother was grateful beyond words to those squares of color, 
^to those never-failing interests of form, of light, of arrangement, 


ALMSGIVING. 


179 


which interested him; she herself had no such natural gift; she was 
all the more glad when Jo, under Du Parc’s guidance, had tried his 
hand at art. Mrs. Dymond was less pleased when she heard her 
step-son announcing that he had also adopted some of Monsieur 
Caron’s doctrines. Jo had met Caron once or twice at the studio, 
where the good old man used to call with the various handbills and 
tricolor announcements which he was having printed to herald the 
coming book. 

Tempy, who had wanted to start half an hour before, now sat 
half - asleep upon the red couch withits red cushions. The faint 
aroma of the poppies in the sunlight seemed to taint the drowsy 
air in the little room, where time passed to the slow ticking of the 
clock, and where Apollo in his car was forever galloping beneath 
his crystal dome. Little Phraisie was in the next room, also sleep- 
ing, on the bed with drawn curtains. When the heat of the day 
was over, Henrietta Wilkins was to take her into the Tuileries 
gardens close by. It was her pride to sit there at her work and 
to hear the people admire the “little cherubim,” while she piled her 
gravel pies at her nurse’s knee. 

Mrs. Dymond had insisted on waiting for her mother and Du 
Parc. As the flood of people passed on down below, in vain she 
scanned the figures, seeking for the persons for whom she looked. 
A vague sense of uneasy disappointment came over her. So ab- 
sorbed was she watching the endless procession that she did not 
hear the door open, nor become aware that Du Parc was in the 
room, until Jo’s loud cries of “Mrs. Dymond! Mrs. Dymond!” made 
her look round. 

A dark figure was standing in the door- way. Tempy started up, 
Jo put down his brush, and Susanna, with a sudden sense of ease 
and tranquillity, turned from her window and faced her new friend, 
blushing a little, looking more beautiful than he had ever seen her. 

“Madame,” said Du Parc, bowing very low as usual. 

“How do you do, M. Max?” said Mrs. Dymond, welcoming her 
visitor “ Where is my mother? Is she not coming?” 

“I was not able to see her when I called — Madame Marney was 
in her room. She sends a message;” and Du Parc brought out a 
folded scrap from his waistcoat-pocket : 

“My darling Susy, — D o not wait for me; I had rather not 
come. I am keeping the boys, for I expect their father home. 

“ Your loving Mother. 

“P.S. — I will call, if I can, and see the darling baby in the course 
of the day.” 


180 


MRS. DYMOND. 


The note was disappointing, hut it was no use delaying any 
longer. 

“We are late,” says Tempy, starting up. “We ought not to 
have waited so long. Mr. Bagginal will be quite tired out.” 

“I have been with M. Caron. I am sorry you delayed for me,’’ 
said Du Parc, as usual only addressing Susanna, who was giving 
Wilkins some parting directions as she took her cloak and her 
parasol from her faithful attendant. 

Max seemed preoccupied at first and unlike himself, as they all 
walked along the street to the quai whence the steamers started. 

Susanna and the pursuit of pleasure were not at this moment the 
great preoccupations of his mind ; other things less peaceful, less 
hopeful were daily closing up around him. There was a terrible 
reality to him in his apprehensions, all the more vivid because from 
his artistic qualities he belonged to the upper and more prescient 
classes, while from experience and birth he was near enough to the 
people to understand the tones of its voice, the wants of its daily 
life, its angry rising, and its present mood. 

But by degrees, being in Susanna’s company, he brightened up. 
Love requires time and space, if it is not able to accomplish abso- 
lute impossibilities, but it certainly makes the most of the passing 
lights and moments of life. 

“M. Caron detained me over the proofs of his book,” said Du 
Parc. 

“You need not explain. We have nothing to do but to amuse 
ourselves; you have your work to attend to,” said Susy, gayly. 

Susanna had felt of late as if her relations with Du Parc were 
changed, and it seemed quite natural that he should give her details 
of his day’s work. Max, too, realized that he was some one in her 
life, not a passer-by but a fellow-traveller. The two might very 
well have walked out of one of the galleries of the Louvre hard by. 
She with her Grecian goddess looks, he of the dark, southern head 
with the black hair, that beaked nose, the dark, sudden eyes, so 
deeply set, eyes that were hard and soft by turns. And now at this 
moment, not for the first time, a sense of his reality, of the import- 
ance of his presence, of his good-will, of his approbation and acqui- 
escence with her conclusions came over her. There was a curious 
simplicity about Du Parc which impressed people; either he said 
what he meant, or he let you see that he mistrusted you and was 
silent. He had great powers of work and a gift for enjoyment as 
well, which is perhaps more rare, and as he walked along by Susy’s 
side, with his bright looks and his odd swinging gait, he had seemed 
the very impersonation of a holiday-maker, of a man at one with 


ALMSGIVING. 


181 


the moment. They were crossing the great court of the Louvre 
when a shadow came from behind a statue, and a frightened woman, 
starting out into the sunshine, suddenly put out a trembling white 
hand for alms. Susanna and her young people, from their English 
training, were passing on, they had a vague idea it was wrong to 
give to casual beggars, but Du Parc stopped short. 

“Why are you begging, Madame Lebris ?” said he, roughly. 
“Are you ill?” 

“Iam dying,” said the woman, quietly; “my children are starv- 
ing.” 

“ Where is your husband?” 

“You know better than I do,” she answered. 

“Go home at once,” said Du Parc. “I will come and see you 
this evening.” 

He thrust a napoleon into her hand. She took it with a weary 
look, and he nodded and hurried after the others. They were all 
standing a few yards off waiting for him. 

“I know the woman; she is the wife of a man who has worked 
for me,” he said in French, looking vexed and confused. He had 
paid away his last gold-piece, and he had but a few sous left in his 
pocket. How was he to go on with them and pay for his share of 
the dinner? Max had hardly recovered himself when he saw Mr. 
Bagginal. “Ah!” said he, “there is your friend!” and, as he 
spoke, our attache, with an umbrella, a grievance, and a flower in 
his button-hole, came up to meet them from the steamer steps. 

The holiday of the year had begun, and with the sunshine the 
shores had quickened with green, with song, with the stir of spread- 
ing life. There were two or three young men and women and 
some children on board, one or two experienced excursionists, some 
house-keepers carrying their baskets, a village wedding returning 
home after the ceremony; as the steamer stopped at each landing- 
place in turn, the company passed off the boat, scarcely any one 
remained by the time they were nearing St. Cloud. Jo was prac- 
tising his French upon the man at the wheel. Tempy, much 
amused by the smoothly talkative and attentive Mr. Bagginal, sat 
somewhat mollified and relenting on a bench, red hair and Parisian 
checked cotton dress, and her big white parasol open to shade her 
pink cheeks. Susy, at the other end of the same bench, sat smil- 
ing, watching the lights and the shadows, listening to the song of 
the birds and the wash of the ripples, answering a word now and 
then when Du Parc, who had been smoking at the other end of the 
boat, came up to speak to her. 

At first, conscious of impecuniosity and also under the restraint 


182 


MRS. DYM0ND. 


of Mr. Bagginal’s presence, he had kept silent and aloof. Now he 
began to talk again ; he told her stories along the shore, pointed out 
the prettiest walks, the pleasantest chalets where the Parisians go 
on summer afternoons, and dine and enjoy the sunsets in the sky, 
while the fish come leaping from the river into their plates, and 
the white wine flows into the glasses which the damsels bring with 
serious, smiling looks, and the white boats slide by, and birds fly 
home to rest, and the glorious sunset says, “Come, clink the glass- 
es and quaff the golden wine.” 

“Ah ! do you know that place ?” interrupted Mr. Bagginal, as 
Max pointed out a restaurant with wide balconies standing by the 
water’s edge. “ I’m told it is first-rate; shall we cline there?” 

“You will find a very good dinner,” Max said. 

The steamer travelled on between the shores in the new sunshine. 
It was so early in the season that but few people were on board. 
One of those glorious bursts of spring had overtaken them. 

Susy saw villas amid budding sycamore-trees, with fringing pop- 
lars, whitewashed walls, terraces, gardens breaking into flower, 
high-roads, whence people hailed the steamer with friendly signs. 
She watched the pale blue spring sky, the high, floating clouds. 

“Are you not afraid of being burned?” said Du Parc. 

Susy opened her sunshade, though she loved the sun. Was she 
awake or asleep ? was this herself, the sad, harassed, bewildered, 
lonely widow, this happy being basking in this delightful, invigor- 
ating present? Vivid admiration is a disturbing element sometimes; 
we thankfully absorb the hour tranquilly, exist to the uttermost 
while it lasts, scarcely understand it all. So sits Susanna, while 
the water beats fresh against the sides of the big boat, and the warm 
sunlight comes quickening; everything flows into the very soul of 
the hour, that mysterious natural soul which people share with 
one another, with place, with time. 

They travelled on peacefully in this floating companionship and 
sympathy, while the new life stirred along the banks. 


ST. CLOUD BEFORE THE STORM. 


183 


CHAPTER XXII. 

ST. CLOUD BEFORE THE STORM. 

“ Amidst th ’ Hesperian garden , on whose banks , 

Bedewed with nectar and celestial songs, 

Eternal roses grow , and hyacinth , 

And fruits of golden rind , on whose faire tree 
The scaly harvest-dragon ever keeps 
His uneimhanted eye .''' 1 — Comus. 

“ I wish my mother had come with us,” said Susy, as the steamer 
stopped at the landing - place of St. Cloud, just where the public 
place, and the barracks, and the terraces all meet, while beyond these 
slate roofs and balustrades the tufted green and lilac, and silver and 
gold, of the lovely hanging gardens rise, and the white walls and 
windows of the palace. A flag was flying, for the court was there, 
the emperor, the empress, the young prince imperial, and their at- 
tendants; and indeed as they landed, the soldiers were presenting 
arms to some smart open carriages which were rolling by with glit- 
tering outriders, a flashing of harness, a waving of plumes, a click of 
arms ; it was a pretty, brilliant sight. 

“ Shall we dine first, or walk first?” said Mr. Bagginal, gayly. 
“M. du Parc, you know the place better than I do.” 

Du Parc hesitated. 

“If ces dames are not afraid of a long walk,” said Du Parc, “we 
might stroll back through the woods to Sevres; and I can recom- 
mend that little restaurant you were looking at just now for your 
dinner,” he said, finishing his sentence to Susanna herself. 

Susy agreed at once. She was in childish spirits, and behaving 
like a child, thought Tempy, severely, somewhat in Mrs. Bolsover’s 
frame of mind. 

Ja stared at Susanna; he, too, did not know her; he, too, liked her 
best in her old subdued condition, though he was glad to see her 
happy. 

There was a pretty little girl in a village nightcap on board about 
little Phraisie’s age, and as the steamer started, Susy stood looking 
after the child, and thinking of her own with some natural maternal 
solicitude; then she turned and found Max as usual waiting by her 
side, and watching her with something the same expression as that 
with which she had looked at the departing child. 


184 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“ I should like to have made a sketch of that child,’" he said, a lit- 
tle confused at being surprised. “No wonder women are pious,” 
he added, “when they have pretty bambinos of their own to wor- 
ship. I should think for you, madame, the difficulty must be, not 
to believe, but to keep rational in your convictions. ” 

Then Max moved on again and joined the others, for he had seen, 
though Susy did not notice it, a somewhat gloomy exchange of 
looks pass between Tempy and her brother as they stood waiting on 
the slope above. 

It was a general holiday of sunshine, lilacs, lime-trees; dazzling, 
blossoming flowers on every slope and terrace. The steep sides 
were heaped with color, the wrought-iron railings were overhung 
with garlands, with ivy and laburnum and sweet flowering bushes 
pushing through the bars. Whitsuntide had come with an exquisite 
burst. All these French people, natural lovers of beauty and sun- 
shine, were out basking in the flood of sudden happiness. At the 
gate of the great court stood a girl with a half-penitent, half-laugh- 
ing f&ce; she had stolen some overhanging branches of lilac and 
May blossom, and had been called sternly to account by one of the 
old veterans in uniform and metal buttons, guardian angels of this 
earthly paradise. 

The girl, undaunted by the buttons, looked up with merry, entreat- 
ing eyes; the brave old veteran, unconquered in a hundred fights, 
seemed hard put to it now, for all his stripes and gold braid. Just 
overhead from a second terrace, bordered by scrolled iron nails and 
ivy creepers, hung an anxious audience of girls, also provided with 
the plunder of spring, and wondering what their own chance of es- 
cape would be. 

“ She will come over him,” said Mr. Bagginal, laughing. “ Look, 
he is yielding. ” 

Max shrugged his shoulders in an irritating way. 

“ Why do you look so angry?” said Susy. 

“ She will get as a veniality what is her natural right,” said Max. 
“ That is how morality is taught in our schools.” 

“But if you think everybody else has a natural right to pick 
everything there will be only broken stalks for you and me,” says 
Mr. Bagginal, with his usual drawl. 

“I don’t know about you,” said Max, laughing, “I myself have 
long ago made up my mind to broken stalks;” and as he spoke he 
flung a little spray of lilac he had picked over the railings of the 
terrace. 

“ M. Caron should be here,” said Jo. “ What is it he was saying 
in the studio last night, that an equal subdivision of material was an 


ST. CLOUD BEFORE TITE STORM. 


185 


absurdity— that all gifts should be spiritual . . . and capable of infi- 
nite division?” 

‘ * I don’t suppose even Caron could tell you the difference between 
material and spiritual,” said Max, shrugging his shoulders. “He 
certainly doesn’t practise his precepts, but I suppose the Patron 
meant that if you give a man a fish he is hungry again in an hour. 
If you teach him to catch a fish you do him a good turn. But these 
very elementary principles are apt to clash with the leisure of the 
cultivated classes. Will Mr. Bagginal now produce his ticket— the 
result of favor and the unjust subdivision of spiritual enjoyments?” 
said Du Parc, with a smile. 

Mr. Bagginal stared at Max for a moment. Max stared back. Du 
Parc had a quiet, confident manner which did not, however, always 
put people at their ease. 

Mr. Bagginal’s order was produced, and the veterans unlocked the 
gates and admitted these wanderers into deeper and sweeter glades 
and beauties. They skirted the avenues, advancing by the stately 
green arcades, walking under the chestnut-trees in flower, climbing 
from one ivy-bound terrace to another — from stone flight to stone 
flight, from avenue to avenue again, and so onward through the 
glorious spring into greener and yet greener places. The larks were 
singing overhead, nightingales and thrushes were answering from 
end to end with notes so sweet, so loud, so mellow that all these hu- 
man beings, with one accord, ceased talking to listen to the sweet, 
pertinacious melody. After a time they found themselves coming 
out into an open place where a lake lay glistening in the spring. 

“There is a terrace somewhere near this,” said Mr. Bagginal. 
“Who knows the way to it?” And Du Parc went to inquire of 
some women with flowers in their hands, who stood smiling and 
pointing out the road. 

“One certainly gets a capital panorama of Paris here,” says Tem- 
py, breathlessly, and ascending the steps of the terrace, and talking in 
her loud, cordial voice to Mr. Bagginal. “I should like to sketch 
it, but I’m not good at sketching ! Jo could do it ; couldn’t you, 
Jo?” 

“ Would you also like to see me stand on my head on the dome 
of the Invalides?” said Jo, gravely. 

“What do you mean, you silly boy?” said Tempy. “You sketch 
beautifully; doesn’t he, Monsieur Du Parc?” 

But Max didn’t answer. He had not yet reached the others, and 
stood leaning against the lower end of the stone parapet by Mrs. 
Dymond, and looking out at the wondrous circle of hills. Susy 
lingered for an instant, she had almost forgotten that such happiness 


186 


MRS. DYMOND. 


was possible — such a moment, such a spring-tide ; the whole air was 
full of a wonderful perfume, the very branches of the trees all 
seemed to be singing and flinging their incense upon the air. 

As Mrs. Dymond stood, flushed and motionless, a new sense of 
the universal community of life reached her; was it her sorrow that 
died away in the flame of the sunshine? Her black gown turned to 
purple in the light. Suddenly she seemed to know that she was 
young, that she belonged to the world in which she was breathing, 
to now, not only to the past; that the present claimed her, that the 
past was past. 

“Come up this way. Come! come!” cries Jo, looking back, and 
in a sort of dream Susanna moved on, still followed by Du Parc. At 
their feet spreads Paris in its sober robe of white, with its thousand 
domes and roofs and spires, pale, shining, and beautiful, delicately 
outlined and shaded; while the hills lie like a charm enclosing all, 
and the silver turns of the river are flowing on into the very heart 
of the great city, as though to wash away every shadow and stain 
from its stones. 

There are some things can scarcely be remembered, much less writ- 
ten down; among these is the quality of moments which come to us 
now and again, the complexity and multiplication of happiness and 
beauty which can give these life. 

“And what about dinner?” says Mr. Bagginal. “How does one 
get away from here?” 

“There should be a path somewhere through this wood,” says 
Max, looking about him. 

He found the way presently, along the shade and the sunshine 
under the trees, past a sunny glen where some milk-white goats, 
like creatures out of an idyl, were disporting themselves. Pan was 
perhaps hidden among the bushes, or Actaeon was sleeping among 
the ivy. The little wood led down-hill to iron gates. 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

X LA PflCHE MIRACULEUSE. 

“ Pour etre au ton de vos musettes , 

En vain je cherche de V esprit.” — Moreau. 

As they came jogging gayly along the lane Jo leaped up in the air, 
broke a branch of lilac from one of the overhanging trees, and com- 
ing up to his step-mother flung it to her. 

“Take it home for me,” said Jo; “put it in your parasol. I’ll 


1 LA PfiCIIE MIRACULEUSE. 187 

try and paint it when I get back.” And he hurried past her to over- 
take the others. 

“Don’t you think he has great talent?” said Susanna, with a 
thoughtful look, which brightened as it fell on Jo’s red shock head. 

“He must work on and find out for himself what he is capable 
of,” said Du Parc, looking not at Jo but at Susy herself with uncon- 
cealed kindness and admiration. 

Even for Susanna, or perhaps because it was Susanna (to him the 
sweetest, fairest woman he had ever known), he could not say more 
than he felt. Her concerns seemed to him next to his own, the most 
important things in all the world. Perhaps his own also gained in 
importance from her coming, her interest in them. They were 
reaching the gate where the sentry was standing, armed to the teeth, 
and Susy, with a woman’s disregard of lawful authority, drew a fold 
of her dress over the lilac blossom. 

The iron gates led by a lane to the village green of Sevres, where 
the children were at play and where many people were coming and 
going, while old people talked in the sunshine. The green led to 
the river, spanned by the bridge soon to be the scene of so many 
desperate encounters, of unavailing appeals and hopeless parleys, 
the boundary-line between victory and defeat. Who could have 
realized that day the piteous tragedy, already near, while the chil- 
dren danced and the peaceful elders rested at the end of their long 
day’s work, and the young people advanced, gay with the mirth of 
the hour? 

Neither Jo nor Tempy as they went along noticed a strange-look- 
ing figure, who, however, seemed greatly interested in them. It was 
a tall, pale man, in a workman’s dress, with long, fair hair reaching 
to his shoulders. He had been resting on a bench ; he got up, see- 
ing Du Parc, and laid his hand heavily and familiarly upon his arm. 

“Ah! at last. I hoped we might meet,” he said, drawing him a 
little aside. Then quickly and excitedly, “Hast thou heard the 
news? The police have paid a domiciliary visit to Papa Caron: 
they found nothing except some of thy caligraphies. Happily, art 
is privileged. The commissaire was told that thy * Goddess of Lib- 
erty ’ was the portrait of the late Madame Caron. I have seen Le- 
bris,” the stranger went on. “He tells me Dombrowski is in Paris. 
He will be in the Rue de la Hotte to-night; are we to expect you? 
Mademoiselle vous es’cusera,” said the long-haired man, somewhat 
familiarly, with a stare at Susy. 

Du Parc looked at his acquaintance with a very haughty air, 
which took him of the long hair somewhat aback. 

“Lebris had much better be looking after his family than med- 


188 


MRS. DYMOND. 


dling in tilings lie does not understand,” said Du Parc, and turning 
away without a further answer he rejoined Mrs. Dymond and almost 
hurried her away. 

“ Is that an artist?” said Susy, rather awe-stricken. 

“An artist, no; that is one of our rising politicians,” said the 
young man, with a shrug of the shoulders, as they walked on. “I 
confess that if it was not for Monsieur Caron’s sake I could gladly 
knock him down for his impertinence to you. His name is Jourde, 
he is one of the best of them. But — ah ! the whole thing seems like 
a bad' dream now as I walk along by your side,” cried Du Parc, 
suddenly forgetting his reserve and realizing the utter gulf, the abso- 
lute distance, the impassable barrier which divided him from the 
sweet and gracious being whose looks rested so kindly pn his, whose 
voice filled his ears, whose every word and motion seemed to him 
touched with peace, beauty, good-will upon earth, some harmony 
almost more than human. 

And was all this to be put aside, thrust away, for what ? For a 
hopeless cause, a nightmare, for these dirty hands holding out a 
grotesque semblance of liberty and justice. Then he thought, with 
a bitter pang of self-reproach, of his dear old master and friend, of 
that lifelong sacrifice and devotion, that patient following of Truth 
in its many disguises, and that aspiration after greater things than 
tranquillity and ease. Suddenly shaken and stung back to the real- 
ity of life Max put a hard and dogged control upon himself for the 
rest of the walk; he would not let himself think, and yet he could 
not enjoy the present any more. Mrs. Dymond wondered what 
had come to him. His manner, his voice, his face had changed, he 
seemed no longer her friend and companion, but one strange and 
far removed from their simple merry-making. 

The others saw no difference, and came up laughing and in high 
spirits when Max called to Jo to hasten, or they migfit not got their 
table at the inn where they were to dine. They turned down along 
the river-side again; the P3che Miraculeuse stood at a silver turn of 
the Seine, and the hungry excursionists were coming up from vari- 
•ous sides to the many tables which were set ready, some in the dark 
dining-rooms down below, some on a broad balcony or terrace from 
which the river could be seen, floating into those glorified distances, 
where the sweet resounding woods and visions through which they 
had been passing lay hidden in the sunset. N 

The lady in the camisole sitting in the little lodge below smiled 
an affable welcome, and put out five ivory counters for her guests. 

“Will you take your entrance tickets?” said Du Parc, holding 
out four of the counters. 


X LA PkCHE MIRACULEUSE. 


189 


“And what will you do?” says Mr. Bagginal, rather relieved to 
find Max was not to be at the dinner. 

“ I am not coming. I must go back,” he answered. 

Susy exclaimed in disappointment. 

Max heard her exclaim as, lifting his hat, he turned away quick- 
ly. He could not explain to them all that when he had thrust his 
last napoleon into Madame Lebris’s trembling hand he had given his 
share of the feast to the poor woman who had appealed to him as 
they started. At the time he had regretted the sacrifice, now he 
was glad to get away — his mood had changed. He was in no diffi- 
culty about his meal. There was always a loaf of bread and a bot- 
tle of wine in his mother’s cupboard at home, and he now started to 
■walk back to the villa and to partake of this frugal repast before 
visiting his protegee on his way to joining Caron at the appointed 
place. 

Dombrowski had been sent on some missiom— Du Parc knew not 
what, only that it was of vital importance to the cause, so, at least, 
Caron’s friends affirmed. Max himself had little faith in these 
mysterious expeditions and conspiracies. He was ready to do his 
part, even to go on missions if need be; at all events, to help those 
that wanted help, to send a share of his own strength and good-will 
to others, but he had no fancy for plots and secret societies ; and it 
may as well be explained at once, that, although he lived in the 
company of schemers and plotters, he himself belonged to no secret 
societies. His godfather had promised the sturdy madame that 
Max should not be involved. Caron was scrupulous to keep his 
word and his promises. He was absolutely trusted and respected ; 
introduced by him, Max was welcomed, although bound by no 
promises. He was even courted by many of those who were able 
to see his utility to their cause if he once heartily joined any one of 
the many cliques and brotherhoods which were secretly growing 
round about. But, in truth, his mind just then was full of other 
thoughts and preoccupations, and one’s own experience perforce 
comes before that of others, however unfortunate. As he walked 
along in the dusk by the river-side towards home, something seemed 
calling to him — calling from the little eating-house where the lights 
were beginning to kindle up. “She is going from you,” said a 
voice. “Who knows ? she might remain, she might be yours; but 
she is happier as she is, and you would not have things altered.” 
He knew enough of the world to realize that Susy and her sur- 
roundings were utterly unsuited to him and to his life. Max was 
not over-diffident; modesty was not one of the qualities with which 
nature had endowed him, and something in Susanna’s eyes and 


190 


MRS. DYMOND, 


voice and manner told him that to her he was beginning to he no 
less interesting than she had long been to him. Poor child! she 
had better go before she knew the truth, return to her home, her 
comforts, her religion, her friends, the reverends in their white ties, 
to her narrow prejudices, her well-mounted household. Hie thee to 
a monastery! What had induced this lamb from the flock to come 
in innocence and thrust itself into his gueule de loup ? Dear wom- 
an, she should go as she had come. She should not know how 
near he had been to asking her to make the sacrifice of peace and 
home, and country and consideration, ‘ ‘ for she might accept me. 
She is a woman just like any other.” So reasoned Max, who was 
himself a man just like any other. 

Meanwhile Susanna sat silent in her darkening corner, also 
changed and silenced, disappointed and angry with herself for the 
difference she found in everything ; wondering why Du Parc had 
left them so abruptly, where he was gone, what his going meant. 
The western light shone on still, but with long radiations; the fish- 
erman’s boat, catering for the guests, pushed out across the river to 
the reservoir of trout, the oars flapped with a sad, chilling sound. 
Tempy’s spirits rose as Susy’s fell, and she and Jo and Mr. Bagginnl 
joked and laughed with an extra gayety and noisy enjoyment which 
jarred upon poor Susy, sitting lonely and motionless, with all the 
fading glory of the sunset for a background to her depression. It 
was the same thing on board the steamer in the evening gray, 
where their youthful sports offended not only Susy but a little 
French couple sitting by the wheel. “ Anglais,” said the man, 
“ Barbares,” hissed the pretty little lady, to Jo’s immense amuse- 
ment. 


CHAPTER XXIV. 

SUSANNA’S CORRESPONDENCE. 

“We let false whispers , breeding hidden feares, 

Break gentle sleepe with misconceived dout .” 

Susy came home still, tired, and dispirited. She left the others 
to their cheerful interminable leave-takings down below, and hur- 
ried up the stairs to her own room. As she passed through the sit- 
ting-room she saw some letters lying on the round table, and she 
carried them with her candle into her own room to read. It was 
nearly dark, the light was dying out of the sky, and she untied her 
bonnet and sat down in the chair by her bedside with some sense of 


SUSANNA’S CORRESPONDENCE. 


191 


rest and peace. The first letter was from Mrs. Bolsover, and in her 
own handwriting: 

“Bolsover Hall, April 2 2 d . 

“My dear Susanna,— We are all glad to think the time for your 
return is so near, though I am afraid you will find us very hum- 
drum after your foreign friends and amusements. I only write to 
say that we are expecting you. News concerning such old fogies 
as we are is generally nothing hut a catalogue of ills, more or less 
tiresome. Happily we are all much as usual, with nothing more to 
complain of than when you left the Place. Aunt Fanny has been 
up in town, and has brought back a couple of white rats, which 
Phraisie will approve of. 

‘ ‘ The squire is very well satisfied with his lambs and the look 
of the spring crops. He goes over to the Place on Tuesdays, and 
says all is as it should be. He brings us back cartfuls of fruit and 
vegetables, which the gardeners might otherwise appropriate. 

“Our nephew Oharles has been staying with us, and left us this 
morning. He is thinking of trying for the Civil Service. I was 
delighted to get your letter contradicting the unfavorable accounts 
which had reached us of his conduct in London, and which, as you 
know, I never believed. I was glad to tell him how completely you 
had justified him. 

“We are rather anxious at the last accounts from Paraguay, 
where my brother Peregrine is now living. The country seems in 
a very unsettled state. He has written us a very long and, no 
doubt, interesting letter on the subject of the last ministerial changes 
there. He promises to send us another box of curiosities before 
long. 

‘ ‘ Pray remember us very kindly to your mother and her family. 
Give our fond love to Jo and Tempy, and, with a hug to the pre- 
cious child, believe me, my dear Susy, ever your affectionate old 
sister-in-law, Caroline Bolsover. 

“Tell Phraisie we shall be looking out for her by the end of the 
week, and that we shall keep the rats till she comes for them.” 

The second letter was also stamped with the Bolsover crest, but 
it bore the London postmark, and was directed in a dashing and 
blotted handwriting, at which Susy wondered as she opened it. 
Then she began to read attentively, and having finished, she read 
the letter through a second time; and then, still holding it in 
her hands, she sat motionless trying to think, to realize how 
much it might mean. The words were simple enough, and to the 
point: 


13 


192 


MRS. DYMOND. 

“ D Street, Soho, April 23d. 

“My dear Mrs. Dymond, — Many months have passed since I 
have troubled you, either by writing or by coming. When I last 
saw Tempy I felt she would prefer that I should absent myself for 
a time. I think, however, it will be better for all our sakes to get 
to a definite understanding. My time at Oxford is at an end, and 
it is necessary to make some plans for the future. My aunt Fanny 
has been in town visiting JamraCh’s and the spring exhibitions, and 
kindly exerting herself on my behalf. A former admirer, she tells 
me, has promised her to give me a nomination for the Foreign Office, 
and this, with what my uncle allows me, will enable me, I trust, to 
pay my washing bills and keep me not only in crusts but in cigars. 
My Aunt Caroline has also shown me a letter which you have been 
kind enough to write, contradicting a report which I never heard of 
till now, and which certainly confirmed my poor Uncle John in his 
prejudice against me. I will not dwell upon this unexpected eclair- 
cissement, for although in this particular instance appearances were 
hard upon me, other facts (that I am heartily ashamed of now) may 
not have reached his ears, which would have undoubtedly seemed 
to him good reasons for opposing my marriage w T ith my cousin 
Tempy. But at the same time I protest that I was hardly dealt 
with on the whole ; if he had lived I should have appealed once 
more to him, to his sense of justice, to his great affection for his 
daughter. He is gone, leaving you her guardian in his place, and 
I come to you. If you could see my heart you would understand 
that I am sincere, you would see how truly I love her. I also think 
that no one else could ever make her so happy as I could. If she 
still loves me, I will come at once and meet you anywhere you like; 
to her I would rather speak than write. Meanwhile, I can only ask 
you to believe me. I am yours, very sincerely, 

“ C. P. Bolsover.” 

As Susy sat there her mind was quickly made up; something in 
Charlie’s letter rang true and seemed to find a ready answer in her 
feeling. Ah! she knew now as she had never known before what 
it was to divide yearning hearts. John would forgive her even if 
he did not approve; but he would approve; true himself, generous, 
considerate for others, how could he not approve? Why should she 
mistrust his unvarying goodness? ... As she sat there she found 
herself almost speaking, almost appealing to her husband, and a 
feeling of oneness with him in her wish’ to do right seemed to set 
her mind and her heart at ease; her eyes filled with tears, her hands 
trembled with excitement. 


SUSANNA’S CORRESPONDENCE. 


193 


Her dreams of the past and of Tempy ’s future were not altogether 
dispersed byJhe voices coming into the next room. Jo and Tempy, 
having taken leave of Mr. Bagginal, had come up-stairs after her. 

“It would have been a delightful day if it hadn’t been for that 
tiresome M. Du Parc,” said Tempy, very loud and cheerfully, drop- 
ping down once more on the red divan which she had left some 
eight hours before. ‘ ‘ I can’t think what Susy finds in him. He 
is a thoroughly disagreeable man, and so are all his friends. He 
has scarcely the manners of a gentleman; do you think so, Jo?” 

“I don’t know; I like him and I like his friends,” said Jo, light- 
ing the candles. “They are rather rough, to be sure, all except 
Monsieur Caron ; but I don’t care so much about manners. You 
like superfine, cream - laid people, like Bagginal and Charlie.” Jo 
said all this walking noisily about the room looking for matches, 
soda-water, opening windows, etc., as people do after a day’s ab- 
sence. “Mrs. Dymond likes them rough,” he went on, “without 
too much polish, like me and Du Parc.” He looked up and stop- 
ped short, for “ Mrs. Dymond” had come back, she was there, she 
had heard what they said. She was blushing crimson and waiting 
in the door-way. 

Jo gave one glance at Tempy, then another at Susy, as she stood 
quite still looking down, and nervously smoothing the ribbons of 
her cloak which she had not laid aside; then he took up his hat and 
was preparing to go out again for an evening pipe in front of the 
house. 

“Don’t go yet, Jo,” said Susanna, in an odd voice. “I have 
something to say to you and Tempy. Something which has been 
on my mind for some days.” Tempy sat bolt upright on her sofa, 
and wondered what on earth was coming. 

“M. Du Parc, whom you dislike, , t Tempy, so much, ’’said Susy, 
with a touch of severity in her voice which Tempy had never heard 
before, ‘ 4 has done us a service for which we ought all to be grate- 
ful. He has cleared away a cruel injustice. Do you not both re- 
member the things which were said of your cousin Charlie, that sad 
time when — when he first spoke to your father? They were all 
false. Monsieur Max knows it was all untrue about the drinking. 
Your father never knew it, and now I too have heard from Charlie 
—the letter was here when I came in. Tempy,” said Susy, trem- 
bling, but recovering herself and speaking more quickly, and look- 
ing very sweet, “it is for you to answer the letter. I should no 
longer feel I was doing right if 1 continued to oppose your marriage. 
I think— I cannot say for certain — but I think your father would 
agree to it now. He used to say,” and Susy turned to her step-son. 


194 


MllS. DYMOND. 


“that her husband must be a good man, Jo, a man to be trusted 
and that she could depend upon — and surely Charlie has proved 
himself faithful and to be trusted.” 

Susy’s voice failed her from sheer emotion and excitement, her 
eyes were full of tears, she felt terrified by the responsibility she 
was taking, and yet she had no doubt in her mind. She came up 
to the divan, and sitting down by Tempy, in her excitement she 
caught her hand in both hers, but Tempy started to her feet and 
shook off the gentle fingers which Susy had laid upon her own. 
The letter between them fell to the ground. 

“You will not oppose! You want to get rid of me, that is what 
you mean, ’’cried the girl, in a sudden jealous fury, speaking with 
volubility and vehemence. “You want to be free to marry that 
Frenchman— and you expect me to be grateful to him and to you — 
for months and months you have looked on at my misery, and now 
because that man tells you to change your mind, to forget my fa- 
ther’s wishes, you — you — Oh, Susy, Susy, I don’t know what I am 
saying,” cried Tempy, breaking down suddenly, flinging herself 
back upon the cushions and bursting into wild, passionate sobs. 

Susanna sat, scared, terrified, too deeply wounded to speak or to 
jhow any sign. Jo, greatly embarrassed, came forward and stooped 
to pick up Charlie’s letter which was lying at Susy’s feet. 

“Yes, read it, Jo,” said Mrs. Dymond, in an odd, chill voice. 
“You can show it to her when she is more reasonable. You can 
tell her that I did not look on unfeelingly; I have tried to be sin- 
cere with your father and with his children. Tempy ought to trust 
me, and to know that I have no secret reasons — though I understand 
better than I did once, perhaps, what she has had to suffer. ” 

As Susy spoke the meaning of her own words seemed to over- 
come her. She started up. Sjie was wanting to get back to her 
own room, to be alone, to hide her agitation, to rest from her fatigue 
and exhaustion of spirit. Her tears were gone, but as she stood up, 
suddenly everything became dim to her eyes. In one instant life’s 
perplexities, joys, and agitations ceased for Susy Dymond, except, 
indeed, that in some utter depths of unexplored darkness, something 
was still struggling amid strange and distant clangings and rever- 
berations, struggling and floating back towards life — a something 
which became herself once more as Susy opened her eyes to find 
herself in Tempy ’s repentant, loving, trembling arms, dabbed and 
fanned, sprinkled and dribbled over by tears, eau-de-cologne, and 
wet sponges. Jo was rubbing her hands, Wilkins was present. 
Susy found herself lying back in a chair by the open window; the 
moon and stars were looking in at her, a soft wind was blowing in 


SUSANNA AND HER MOTHER. 


195 


her face. The windows of the opposite balcony were lighted up, a 
chance spectator in a white waistcoat leaning over the rails was 
watching the incident with interest. This was the first trivial fact 
which impressed itself on Susy’s reviving senses. 

“Another sup of water, mem,” says Wilkins, sympathetically. 
“Them expeditions is too much for her! Ah! your color is coming 
back; let Miss Tempy fan you.” 

“Darling, sweet Susy,” whispered Tempy, in a tender voice, like 
a child’s treble. “ Oh, my Susy, I nearly killed you.” 

“Well, ’’said Jo, who looked still quite white and frightened, “I 
thought you had, Tempy, and no mistake.” 


CHAPTER XXV. 

SUSANNA AND HER MOTHER. 

“i drink it as the fates ordain it , 

Come fill it and have done with rhymes , 

Fill up the lonely glass and drain it, 

In memory of dear old times." ^ 

Ballad of Bouillabaisse. 

Early next day Susy was standing at the gate of the villa. Af- 
ter the events of the night before, they had all come to the conclu- 
sion that it would be best to go home at once. And Tempy, agi- 
tated and surrendering, had written to her lover to meet them. 
Susy knew that her mother would approve of the . engagement, but 
she was doubting how she could best break to her the news of their 
approaching departure. She herself was loath enough to go. Her 
heart was not light, she could not feel as Tempy did, whose new 
life was waiting for her on the English shores. Whereas it seemed 
to Susy as if she was leaving all hers behind— her true interest, her 
truest self; as she drove along she wondered whether she should 
see Max presently, and be able to tell him of all that had happened, 
and of the great determination they had come to. She wondered 
what he would say, how he would look— approving? disapproving? 
Would he be in the same mood as when he had left them the night 
before? She found no answer to her question. The villa was silent 
and deserted, and as she crossed the garden she saw that the studio 
windows were closed, as well as madame’s kitchen doors. She 
went in at the passage, passed through the Marneys’ dining-room, 
where the breakfast things were still upon the table, and so came 
into the little sitting-room, where she found her mother. Mrs. 


196 


MRS. DYMOND. 


Marney was lying on the old yellow sofa; for once she was not at 
work. Mikey and Dermy’s piles of underclothing lay ripped un- 
heeded, seams opening wide, upon a chair. Their mother was 
leaning back with her hands upon her lap, a pair of horn spectacles 
and a newspaper lay upon the table. 

“I think I am better, dear,” said Mrs. Marney, peacefully, like 
a person going on with a sentence already begun. “Madame has 
been in to sit with me. She has been reading to me. I have heard 
all about St. Cloud ! Max du Parc came for a minute last night, 
and brought me news of you all. What a lovely day you have had 
for your walk! Marney is at the Tuileries to-day. Yes, indeed, 
Monsieur De Morny sent for him. You don’t know how much they 
all think of his opinion. Nobody knows more about politics than 
he does ; I wish he understood his own atfairs half as well as those 
of Europe,” said Mrs. Marney, with a sigh and something of her 
old manner. As Susy stood in the summer light, against the green 
of the windows, with all her black rippling round her, the mother 
looked fondly and proudly at her daughter. “What a beautiful 
cloak that is, my child; how well your widow’s mourning becomes 
you.” Susanna blushed up crimson. 

‘ ‘ Oh, don’t} mamma, don’t say such things. ” 

“ Why, the colonel always liked you to look well and becomingly 
dressed,” said Mrs. Marney. “ I used to tell him it was he, not you, 
that cared for the bonnets. I myself like pretty things; I can some- 
times think of your clothes, Susy, when I can’t look at my own for 
worry. I was upset yesterday; the police came just after Max was 
gone. Madame was in a terrible taking, and talked some nonsense 
about Marney.” 

“What nonsense, mamma?” Susy asked. 

“Oh! we have made it up,” Mrs. Marney said, taking Susy’s 
hand and stroking it. “ Max, like a good fellow, brought her in 
this morning. Well, what have you got to tell me? I see there is 
something by your face.” 

When Susy began, with no little reluctance, to break her own 
news she found that her mother received it better than she had 
dared to hope. “So you have made it all right for the poor girl. 
I am glad of that, my Susy; it’s ill work parting those whom God 
has joined together. I shall miss you sorely; but promise me to 
come back if ever I want you. Promise, Susy, and I shall not fash 
over the parting,” and Susy eagerly promised. “ Oh, mamma, any 
time, any time.” 

“I can keep the boys a few days longer,” Mrs. Marney continued. 
“ Caron is going over to England next week, and he will leave them 


SUSANNA AND HER MOTHER. 


19 ? 


at school for me.” Mrs. Marney was very tender, yery motherly, 
but absent in manner. “Is that madame’s voice?” she said, un- 
easily. “Don’t wait, Susy, you must have so much to see to.” 
But almost as she spoke madame appeared upon the threshold, 
concentrated, forbidding in aspect. When she saw Susanna stand* 
ing near her mother’s sofa, madame stopped short, stared fixedly, 
and immediately turned and walked away out of the room. Mrs. 
Marney flushed up, then laughed at Susy’s look of bewilderment. 
“I did not want her to see you here, Susy.” And when Susy asked 
what it meant, “She has got some nonsense in her head — people 
trouble themselves too much about other people’s alfairs,” was all 
Mrs. Marney said, and then she kissed her daughter’s face, holding 
it between both her hands, and looking into her eyes as tenderly 
as if Susy had still been a child depending on her for everything. 
Mrs. Marney promised to come up with the boys, and to say good- 
bye next day in the afternoon, when Marney was gone. Susy 
would gladly have remained longer; she hoped to have seen Max 
before she left; she wanted an explanation with madame; but her 
mother seemed only anxious to hurry her away; for one moment 
at the door did Mrs. Marney detain her wistfully, and in that mo- 
ment Susy found courage to say, in a low voice, ‘ ‘ Mamma, you will 
tell Monsieur Max we are going. We expect him, too, to say good- 
bye.” Then Mrs. Marney flung her arms around Susy’s neck and 
began to cry. 

“ Ah, poor Max! he will miss you, but not so much as I shall. 
Oh ! remember, I must always count on you for my boys, Susy ; 
you are young, but no younger than I was when I was left a wid- 
ow, and I took my own course, and it has been a hard life, but in- 
deed I would not change it,” said the faithful, inconsequent woman. 
“Go, darling, go.” 

Poor Susy drove home disappointed and perplexed by her visit, 
and wondering at the meaning of it all. She was used to her moth- 
er’s ways, used to the mysteries of that household from which she 
had so thankfully escaped; she could imagine, alas! what good rea- 
son her mother might have to try to avoid a meeting between Mr. 
Marney and herself, but Madame Du Parc’s behavior distressed and 
troubled her. Some crisis had occurred, of that she was assured. 
They were all against her, her mother and madame and that hateful 
Marney. People in an excited and abnormal condition are quickly 
suspicious, and Susy crimsoned at the thought that it must all have 
to do with her friendship for Max. Ah! what business was it of 
theirs. If only she could have seen him once more. If only he had 
come to her. Then she felt that everything would have been plain. 


198 


MRS. DYMOND. 


Mrs. Dymopd found active preparations for their departure going 
on when she reached the hotel, and a general confusion of Wilkins 
among the bandboxes, of parcels without number, and milliners-in- 
waiting. Tempy was writing in the drawing-room, and looking 
up with a face so changed, so radiant with transient beauty and 
happiness that Susy could scarcely believe that was the Tempy 
she had known all along. “ I have had a telegram,” said Tempy. 
“ Charlie will meet us at Folkestone the day after to-morrow;” and, 
“Oh! Susy, Mr. Bagginal came this morning, and Monsieur Du Parc. 
I was very civil, indeed, and nice to them both. They want to take 
us somewhere to breakfast to-morrow, and Monsieur Du Parc is com- 
ing on to the Louvre afterwards, so he will have ail day long to 
say good-bye, as we don’t leave till after dinner.” 

Susy didn’t answer. She sat down rather wearily, he had been 
there, she was glad of that, even though she had missed him; but 
at the same time she had an odd feeling of some intangible, unrec- 
ognized trouble at hand, one to be avoided, not faced, to be fled 
from, never to be realized. All day long the thought possessed her 
while she packed and paid and parted, and settled the various de- 
tails of their going. 

Du Parc saw Susy again that evening, though she did not see 
him. Susy and Tempy, with Phraisie between them, were driving 
at foot pace along the Champs Elysees. They were rolling home 
from the Arc, behind which the sun was setting, a huge dropping 
globe of limpid fire. Max had been staring at the glories that were 
lighting up the Arc, and its stony chariots, and heroic memories, 
while the triumphal clouds above were heaped in a present apoth- 
eosis of splendor and commemoration. The victors and victoresses 
of this present generation were complacently driving out in the soft 
evening air, after the heat of the day, and issuing from their houses, 
or strolling leisurely or resting on the benches along the way. 
Many of the passers-by looked up at the two English ladies in their 
equipage with the pretty blue-eyed child between them. Among 
these came Max du Parc, trudging home from Monsieur Caron’s with 
a portfolio under his arm containing his completed work. Susy did 
not see him, but he saw her, and the prosperous serenity of the little 
party struck him painfully, and the carriage seemed to him some- 
how to be rolling and rolling away, right away out of his life. 


SAYING “GOOD-BYE.” 


199 


CHAPTER XXVI. 

SAYING “GOOD-BYE.” 

“ Farewell , thou art too dear for my possessing, 

And like enough thou knowest thine estimate. 

The charted' of thy worth gives thee releasing ; 

My bonds in thee are all determinate .” 

Mr. Bagginal was also of the farewell party. They were to 
breakfast at a certain old-fashioned cafe near the Pantheon, which 
Du Parc had recommended, and to adjourn to the Louvre for one 
last morning in the galleries which already seemed so familiar. 
That last day in Paris, the lights, the streets, the cafe with its shin- 
ing tables, and deep windows, and criss-cross shadows, the blazing 
gardens without, long haunted Susy, who was destined to live so 
many of these hours again and again in other scenes and other sur- 
roundings. She had met Max with an effort, trying to be calm. 
Alas ! her effort to be wise and calm only revived for him the mem- 
ory of that stiff, doll-like Susanna who used to seem so meaningless 
once. Now he knew better, he did not think her meaningless; on 
the contrary, he attached too much meaning to her coldness. 

As they all sat at their table with the snowy cloth by the grated 
window, Mr. Bagginal and Jo kept up the ball; Tempy was too 
happy, Susanna was too sad to talk very much. 

‘ ‘ I shall be coming over to see my people in a few weeks, ” said the 
attache. “ I hope I shall find you at Crowbeck, Mrs. Dymond. ” 

“ That is all right,” said Jo. “You must come and see us, and 
you too, Du Parc. When shall you be in England again?” 

But Du Parc did not respond very warmly. He felt some jar, 
some constraint in this semblance of a meeting. “ I don’t like mak- 
ing plans,” he said, abruptly; “ plans are for landed proprietors and 
diplomats; we working men are obliged to take things as they 
come.” 

“Here come the cutlets,” cried Bagginal, who thought Max’s 
sallies not in the best taste. Susy, too, was vaguely vexed by his 
roughness. Things mended a little when they reached the Louvre. 
The work of great men, which makes a home for us in strange 
places, is often not unlike a living presence, influencing us, just as 
some people do, calling something that is our best selves into life. 


200 


MRS. DYMONi). 


There is something in che highest art which is like nature, bring- 
ing people into a different state of being, sweeping away the reti- 
cences, the hesitations, of the different grades of life. The different 
manners and ways of men and women are realities in their way, but 
they scarcely count when the greater truths prevail. 

Max walked ahead, suddenly more at home and more at ease; he 
led the way from room to room, from one eventful picture to anoth- 
er, and yet all the time as he went along the voice of that night be- 
fore was haunting him still, and even while he was speaking he 
sometimes broke off abruptly to listen to it. “ She is going from 
you,” this voice still said; “ she might be yours, she might remain.” 
Perhaps some vein of English blood had taught Max to feel for wom- 
en some deeper, more tender sentiment than the ‘passionate ferment 
of romantic admiration and excitement which seems to play an all- 
important part in France (if we are to judge by its yellow and bil- 
ious literature); some gentler and more noble instinct was in his 
heart than that strange emotion which, according to these same ob- 
servers, belongs to any one but to a wife — to a passing dream, to a 
flaunting veniality. . . . Whereas (according to these same records) 
for the mothers of their homes, for the companions of their life, a 
family lawyer’s acquiescence, their parents’, their grandparents’ ap- 
probation, is to be considered first and foremost, human nature, in- 
stinctive feeling, last and least. 

But Max was but half a Frenchman, after all, as he walked along 
by Susy’s side through the long galleries. They came down from 
the glowing pictures into the cool, stony halls below, and passed 
from one century to another with a few lingering steps. The tombs 
of Egyptian kings and warriors lined their way; then came the 
tokens and emblems of the great Roman empire, with all its pomp 
of funereal rite; followed by the bland and lovely emblems of the 
Greeks, those stately figures still treading the earth in some immor- 
tal fashion, while the present waves of life flow on, washing away 
the relics of the past as they flow. 

Max looked at the woman he loved, as she stood before the statue 
of some by-gone nymph. The young man, who was an artist as 
well as a lover, made a mental note of the two — the stony, impassive 
nymph, the noble human being so wistfully radiant. Susy felt his 
eyes upon her, and as some feel the sunshine kindling their chilled 
veins, so to her unacknowledged perplexities that bright odd glance, 
part sympathetic, part scrutinizing, seemed to bring re - assurance 
and to give life to her very soul. That one moment was the best of 
all those moments; almost immediately a look, a something, a noth- 
ing, seemed to come between them again. 


SAYING “GOOD-BYE.” 


201 


Long after, an eau forte, signed Maxwell, liad a great success, and 
was for a time to be seen in the window of every art shop in Lon- 
don. It was very slight, but also very complete. The stony statue 
was faithfully copied, its grace and solemn life were repeated as it 
stood upon its pedestal with its finger on its lips; and a woman, 
also draped in flowing folds, also bareheaded, and with a strange 
likeness to the marble, stood with innocent eyes gazing up at the 
stone that recalled her who once was a woman too, who was now 
only a goddess, but still somehow whispering of the beauty and of 
the love of two thousand years ago. 

Mr. Bagginal, loath to go, had to say good-bye presently, and re- 
turn to his embassy. His departure scattered them all. Susy felt 
a strange impatience of this long-drawn leave-taking. She wanted 
to get it over, and to escape from Tempy’s eyes and Jo’s; she was 
not herself, her nerves were irritated, and the restraint she put upon 
herself only added to this nervous impatience. 

“ Shall we walk home through the gardens?” said Mrs. Dymond, 
with an effort, in her stiff and formal manner, and without a word 
Du Parc turned and led the way to the entrance gates. The great 
doors let a blaze of light into the cold marble galleries ; the cocked- 
hat of the suisse was resplendent, and reflected the fine weather as it 
flashed in the door- way ; the great Place without looked like a triumph 
of summer; the rearing stone horses and chariots rose high against 
the deep blue of the sky. Short black shadows marked the arches 
and the pedestals, and Susy breathed deep as she passed out, fol- 
lowed by Jo and Tempy. Opposite was the piazza of the Louvre, 
where the lovely lights were floating from pier to pier, while high 
overhead one or two diaphanous clouds were mounting in the air. 

As they came out of the shade of the portico they seemed almost 
blinded by the glaring sun; the Place was burning with scorching 
heat; it flashed from every arch and pinnacle and window. 

“It is a furnace,” said Tempy; “hadn’t we better wait another 
hour in the gallery?” 

“I have to go home,” Susy said, hurriedly. “Tempy, I cannot 
stay longer, I have to pack. Don’t come; you will find me at home. 
Jo will come with me. ’ 

But Tempy clutched Jo fiercely by the wrist. She did not want 
to be left alone with Du Parc in* the gallery. 

The heat seemed to confuse them all. Susy found herself cross- 
ing the burning Place alone, as she thought, but when she looked 
round, Du Parc was striding by her side, while she hastened to the 
more shady gardens of the Tuileries. It was the ordeal by lire 
through which they were passing. 


202 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“Everything seems on fire,” said Susy, looking about. “ See, we 
shall escape over there,” and she pointed with her hand. 

The young man was unconcerned b) 7 the heat, and chiefly con- 
scious of the cool shadow of her presence. He remembered her 
words and her action one day long after, remembered them for an 
instant amid the flash of fiercer conflict than that which stirred him 
now; and yet at the time he scarcely seemed listening when she 
spoke, and now and again forgot her presence in the sudden reali- 
zation of what her absence would be to him. He had imagined 
once that she understood him— cared something for him. It must 
have been a mistake. How quietly she spoke of her departure. 
“These English women are made of tougher stuff than a poor 
Frenchman is aware of,” Max thought, bitterly. 

The sentry in his shady box stared at Mrs. Dymond and her com- 
panion quickly passing in the burning silence. They reached the 
gardens, almost deserted in the midday heat. 

If it had not been for Tempy’s jealous words the night before, 
Susanna might have parted from Max naturally with regret, sadly, 
but without this cruel pang, this self-reproach. As it was, she could 
not trust herself to be sorry; she must take leave coldly. She must 
not allow herself to feel. 

Then she looked up suddenly, just once to remember him by when 
she was gone, when this cold, unmeaning good-bye had been said ; 
and she saw Du Parc’s keen brown face turned upon her with a 
look which seemed somehow to stab her, and she started as if she 
had been hurt. 

“What is it?” said Du Parc. “ What is it, madame?” 

Susy’s heart began to flutter oddly. She could not answer. Her 
face had been pale before — was now burning with her self -betrayal. 
Was the final decision to be made already? Was there no escape 
from it? It seemed to her as if Tempy had cruelly taken down the 
shutters, and let bright daylight into a darkened room. Now for 
the first time Susy seemed to know that the daylight was something 
so clear, so beautiful that all other lights and flickering tapers were 
but as shadows before it. 

Susanna’s changing looks touched Max with some odd mixture of 
pity and alarm. He had been angry with her for her coldness all 
the morning. But this was no cold indifference. Had she, too, felt 
this estrangement? If it was so, he forgave her, took her into his 
confidence, once more began to speak naturally. 

“Yes, madame, this vile good-bye has come already,” he said, 
“and yet too late for me. Good-byes come most easily to those 
who, like you, take everything with them — almost everything, ” he 


203 


SAYING “GOOD-BYE.” 

repeated, with a sigh. “ I cannot pretend to know how it all may 
seem to you; we belong to different worlds. It is best we should 
part. Ah ! you could not face poverty,” he went on, suddenly. 
“You are not made for sufferings; you belong to the wealthy, hap- 
py, placid people, not to us who are struggling for our lives.” 

Susy felt hurt by this strange tone. “What do you mean?” she 
said. “ I have been poor too.” 

“You have been poor,” he said, looking hard at her, and smiling 
coldly, “but you have never known what it is to suffer, nor to be 
bound and helpless watching others day by day, condemned by their 
race, and dying from sheer incapacity for the struggle of life. Pass 
on — pass on,” he said, almost fiercely. 

Susy’s eyes filled up suddenly, and again her tears softened his 
mood. “ You have courage, and you have heart, but you cannot 
help these things any more than I can,” he went on, more gently. 
“To have known you is a possession to those you leave behind. 
When I remember you after you are gone, it will be with a thought 
of peace in the midst of noise and confusion.” 

Susy, as many a woman before and after her, stood listening, 
scarcely taking in the words, only the sense of the moment. All she 
knew for certain was that they were parting, that he was there still, 
that he was unhappy, that presently she should see him no more. 
They had reached one of the stone benches of the Tuileries, which 
stood in the shade of a tree, almost opposite a little gate that led to 
the Rue du Dauphin. 

“I must go,” said Susanna, speaking very quietly; and he nodded 
and yet detained her, absently holding her hand, which she had 
given him. 

“Ah yes,” he said, suddenly dropping it, “it is indeed time we 
parted. ” 

She did not dare to answer or to comfort him; she did not dare 
tell him that for her, too, the parting had come too late. 

“Good-bye,” she said, still in the same quiet, every-day manner. 
As she moved away slowly he sat down upon the bench. 

The time had come, as she had known it would, and she walked 
on as she had drilled herself to do; with what sad steps she climbed 
the street none but herself could tell: She walked till she reached 
the door of the hotel, where the waiter was standing. He asked her 
some trivial questions about her bill, and an omnibus. She looked 
at him without understanding what he said. Then she mounted 
the wooden stairs, up and down which they had so often happily 
clattered on their way in and out. She might have been kinder, 
this was what she kept thinking over and over again; she might 


204 


MRS. DYMOND. 


have been kinder ; how sad and stern he looked, was it her fault she 
had only thought of herself, not of him, in all she left unsaid? Ev- 
ery sound, every touch seemed to jar upon her nerves and to re- 
proach her. As she opened the sitting-room door she was met by a 
loud, discordant crash. Little Phraisie was passing the long, hot 
morning by thumping on the kej r s of the piano, in tune to her nurse’s 
packing. 

“ I’se playing,” says Phraisie, triumphant. 

“Oh, Phraisie, Phraisie, don’t make such a noise,” said her moth- 
er, irritably, stooping over the child and trying to lift her down from 
the chair. 

‘ f I’se not done, ” protested Phraisie, struggling. 

“Leave off, Phraisie,” Susy repeated; and the child looked up 
surprised by her mother’s tone. She ceased struggling instantly. 

“Mamma, ’’said she, “are I so very naughty? is that why you’s 
crying?” and then Susy found that her own eyes were full of tears 
— she had been selfish and unjust to Phraisie as she had been to Du 
Parc. 

Wilkins came in, hearing the discussion, also heated and cross with 
packing, and asking one question after another about her overflow- 
ing boxes. Susy could scarcely force herself to listen; Du Parc’s 
wild, sad looks were before her eyes, his bitter words in her heart; 
she might have had the courage to speak the truth to him. She 
might have been kinder — was it eyen yet too late? “Phraisie dar- 
ling,” she said, suddenly, “you may play a little bit longer. I have 
forgotten something, Wilkins ; I shall come back. I — I am not 
feeling very well, I must leave the packing to you.” And before 
Wilkins could ask another question she was gone again, hurrying as 
she went. 

“Madame ! madame !” cried Auguste, flying after her with his 
napkin ; but Susy did not turn, and only hastened out into the street, 
tying the long ribbon of her silk cloak as she went. She thought 
she heard her name called, she would not look back. She must see 
him once more, if only to leave him more happy, if only to tell him 
that she was not ungrateful for his friendship. It seemed to her as 
if he was wanting her, as if it was her least duty to go to him, to 
say to him, “ Ah, you do me injustice. It is not that I am rich and 
prosperous and heartless, but because I am poor and have others to 
think of, others depending on me, that I leave you.” Yes, others to 
whom she was bound by a thousand ties; but in her secret heart 
she knew that never again would she feel for any one what she felt 
for this stranger. 

Surely two less propitiously matched people never came together 


SAYING “GOOD-BYE. 


205 


than this man and this woman, who seemed to suit each other so 
well. She, tender, practical, humble, and yet exacting, as diffident 
people are who are not sure of themselves and require constant con- 
victions and re-assurance. He, reserved, over-confident, with a cou- 
rageous power of self-command, perhaps somewhat blunted to the 
wants and pains of others by circumstance. For him the real ma- 
terial wants of life existed chiefly. The hunger for affection, the 
thirst after sympathy was a fancy not worth considering. He was 
suffering now; but he also knew — perhaps better than Susy did— 
that his pain would pass in time. . . . 

He was still sitting on the bench ; he had not moved since she left 
him. He was not conscious of the minutes which had passed. He 
loved her. He knew it. Whether or not she loved him seemed to 
be but a secondary thing. A man loves; a woman longs for re- 
sponse. Max had not stirred except to light a cigar. For a few 
minutes he had gloomily puffed at the smoke, then he took it out of 
his mouth and sat holding it between his fingers. Then he heard 
her quick step advancing; he did not look up or turn his head, but 
when she came close up and sat down on the bench beside him, he 
turned at last. He was all changed, Susy thought. It was as if an 
east wind had passed over some landscape. She was not shy now. 
She was not thinking of herself any more, only of him, and her 
sweet, eager face was lighted with solicitude and kindness. 

“Won’t you speak to me?” she said, after a moment, forgetting 
allffier dignity, all her gentle pride ; “ I want to say a real good-bye 
— since we must say good-bye. I came back, for I could not bear to 
part as we. did just now. I am like you, I am not free to think 
only of my own happiness. I — I wanted to tell you this. I have 
my mother, my brothers, my children depending on me. I should 
forfeit all means to help them if I married again. I, too, have my 
duty. I want to hear you say you forgive me,” she went on, more 
and more agitated. She spoke in her pretty English-French. He 
was silent, and she turned very pale as she realized how little her 
words must mean to him. 

He looked up with dull eyes and spoke at last. 

“I have nothing to forgive,” he said; “I do not complain; you 
have judged wisely; you are perfectly justified. There is nothing 
to regret, nothing to forgive.” 

“Oh, Max!” she said, reproachfully, unconsciously calling him by 
his name, “when you speak to me like this how can I answer you? 
How can I feel you are my friend? What am I to say to make you 
understand?” 

She wrung her hands with sudden pain, for indeed his pain seemed 


206 


MliS. DYMOND. 


to her haider to bear than her own, his happiness seemed to her to 
matter fa*- more than hers could ever matter. She felt herself in 
some way accountable for this man’s happiness. The thought was 
almost more than she could bear, but he would not help her. 

“Yes, I understand well enough,” he answered, “and you have 
also to understand me,” he continued, in a hard, commonplace 
voice. “Don’t you know that graves have to be dug? Do you ex- 
pect me to grimace and make phrases while I am digging a grave?’’ 

Then he looked up at last, and his eyes met hers for one moment. 
Then, still dully and wearily, he rose from the bench. 

“Your step-father is coming,” he said, “and his family. I can- 
not stay here any longer. ” 

And as Susy looked up, in that bitter moment, she, too, saw Mar- 
ney advancing, and the little boys running towards her, and her 
mother following through the iron gate by which she herself had 
come into the gardens but a moment before. 

Max du Parc had got up deliberately, without hurrying; he stood 
for an instant still looking at her; then he took off his hat without 
a word, and turned and walked away. The clocks were clanging 
four o’clock; he crossed the stiff shadow of the orange-tree, and with 
long, swinging steps reached the shade of the avenues beyond ; he 
was gone. She had longed to help him ; she had only disgraced her- 
self; she had done nothing for him — nothing, nothing. Was it the 
sun’s heat sickened her? Was it some overpowering sense of shame, 
of hopeless regret, that seemed to burn into her very heart? 

Some children who had been watching eagerly from behind the 
orange-tree came running up, and established themselves upon the 
vacant bench and began to play an eager game with stones and 
sticks, while the Marney party cheerfully closed round Susy. The 
little boys were specially loud in their demonstrations. “Sister! 
Auguste told us you were here. Didn’t you hear us calling? We 
knew we should find } r ou. ” 

“I am only come for one moment, just to take leave, Susanna,” 
said Marney, with extra heartiness, advancing with both hands ex- 
tended; “but here is your mother for the rest of the day. Is not 
that Du Parc going off? I may as well catch him up. Well, take 
care of yourself, my dear girl, and don’t forget to write.” 

Susy was still in a sort of dream ; she scarcely returned her step- 
father’s easy salutations. She met her mother, but without a smile. 
The poor woman had lingered behind. Had she guessed something 
of what had happened? 

Mrs. Marney more than once looked anxiously at her daughter 
as they walked back together to the hotel. As the day went by 


WAR AND RUMORS OF WAR. 


207 


the elder woman seemed silently to he asking Susy’s forgiveness. 
She took up her daughter’s hand and kissed it. 

‘ ‘ Don’t, mamma, ” said Susanna, pulling her hand away. 

All the same she was glad to have her mother near her until the 
moment of departure came. They sat side by side on the old red 
sofa, saying little, bu f grateful to be together. Once they heard 
a man’s step in the passage outside, and Susy wondered whether 
Max after all had come back again for a few last minutes, but it 
was only Mr. Bagginal with some flowers and bonbons for Phraisie. 
Then the train carried them all away, and Susy looked from her 
sleeping child to Jo peacefully nodding in his corner, to Tempy sit- 
ting absorbed and radiant, and then, something within her suddenly 
cried out, in despairing protest, in tune to the wheels of fate as they 
carried her away. To have so much, yet to be so utterly disheart- 
ened and alone; to have felt as if the world itself could scarce con- 
tain her happiness, and now it seemed to her that the worst of all 
was yet to come. What would he be doing? Who would he be 
talking to? Of what would he be thinking? It was well for her 
that she did not know what the future had in store. 


CHAPTER XXVII. 

WAR AND RUMORS OF WAR. 

“For the angel of Death spread her wings on the blast” 

To all of us who were safe at home in 1870, the distant sound of 
the cannon, the cry of the ousted, sorrowful inhabitants of a coun- 
try but a couple of hours’ journey from our own shores came, soft- 
ened by distance, and by that stultifying sense of our own safety. 
It was not indifference; our neighbor’s trouble was present to us 
and keenly realized, but we know that the good Samaritan himself, 
after walking by the ass and upholding his sick and wounded 
neighbor, left him to recover alone at the inn. With the first alarm 
Michael and Dermy appeared in Tarndale, sent by their mother, to 
finish their holidays in safety. Mr. Marney, whose trade was flour- 
ishing for the moment, forwarded a letter by the boys in his dash- 
ing handwriting. “ I send the boys, my dear Susanna, trusting to 
your sisterly care. I cannot bring them myself. This war gives 
absorbing occupation to men of my trade. I am trying to persuade 
my wife to pack up her boxes and also rejoin you in your luxurious 
home. Poor Polly has some impression that her presence at the 

14 


208 


MRS. DYMOND. 


Villa Du Parc acts as a pledge for her unworthy husband’s safety. 
‘Think of the Prussians!’ says L ‘Let them come on, ’says she. 

‘ I will not desert my post.’ Though what good she can do me 
here, and I at the other end of France, is past my comprehension. 
‘Your home will be always ready,’ says she. ‘You can come 
back at any hour of the day or night;’ and when I represent to 
her that I can do that anyhow with a latch-key and a couple of 
sovereigns, she bursts into tears. Madame Du Parc being of a less 
valorous constitution, has chosen the better part under present cir- 
cumstances, and discreetly retires to her vineyard near Avignon. 
Seriously speaking, my dear Susanna, I do entreat you, who have 
more influence over Polly than most people, to persuade her that 
there is no advantage to me whatever in her remaining here, only 
great inconvenience. Even though the Prussians should not ad- 
vance beyond the frontier, there are all sorts of ill-looking advent- 
urers and Francs-Tireurs hanging about the place just now. ...” 

Poor Mrs. Marney! she scarcely knew how to withstand the 
united commands of her husband and her daughter. Crowbeck 
seemed so far away, so utterly out of reach. There was no one 
there, not even Susanna, to whom she could speak of Marney. 
What should she do there? If he was ill or wounded, Susy would 
never let her go, she would keep her from him. The poor thing 
wandered about the empty villa, pale, anxious, huddled in an old 
cloak, wistfully watching madame’s independent arrangements as 
she prepared for her own departure. Torn with terrors or Marney, 
unable to decide for herself, Mary Marney was utterly miserable 
and wearying to others. Susy’s letters, full of entreaties and of the 
preparations for Tempy’s wedding, only elicited a faint return from 
her mother. Phraisie’s printed messages, the. boys round - hand, 
seemed alone to bring some gleam of interest to the poor soul. She 
studied the papers for news, she cross-questioned everybody. Mar- 
ney had been ordered to the front to join the emperor’s head-quar- 
ters at Chalons, to be in the triumphant train of the journey to Ber- 
lin. Marney used to shrug his shoulders when his wife appealed to 
him as to his probable destination. 

‘ * I don’t mind taking the odds against setting up my quarters in 
the Royal palace at Berlin, if that is what you mean, my dear, ” he 
said. “ Heaven knows where we shall all be this day month. You 
will be more in the way of news at Crowbeck than anywhere else. 
They take in the Velocipede , don’t they? — county big- wigs, as they 
are, crowing on their dung-heaps. ” 

Mrs. Marney only turned away to hide her tears. One day, ma- 
dame, at once touched and irritated beyond measure by her friend’s 


WAR AND RUMORS OP WAR. 


209 


imploring looks, suddenly said, emerging from a huge came of cook- 
ing utensils, which she was carefully packing, 

“I believe you would be happier, after all, if you came with me, 
Madame Marney. If your husband joins the camp at Chalons, you 
will be nearer at Avignon than anywhere else, not that you need 
fear anything for him. He is not one of those who get drowned 
or shot,” mutters madame, with her head in the saucepans again. 

But Mrs. Marney did not care what madame muttered ; she 
clutched at her offer as a child might seize upon a toy. Marney, 
who was absolutely indifferent to his wife’s movements, did not 
oppose the scheme, except by the usual shrug. 

“You know your own mind best,” he said. 

When he took leave of her soon after, her beautiful sad eyes, her 
mute, tender, passionate farewell touched him. “ Poor Polly,” he 
thought, as he turned away, “what the deuce possesses her to be 
so fond of me?” 

Marney actually took the trouble to write to his wife once or 
twice during the first few days; and when his letters came, Mrs. 
Marney, radiant and delighted, would send on long quotations to 
Susy at Tarndale. 

For once Susy was thankful to receive news of Mr. Marney, and 
to know his whereabouts, and that he was prospering. For this 
also meant that her mother’s mind was at ease and able to rest. 
When Marney took the trouble to write to his wife, he would send 
brilliant accounts of his own doings, and graphic descriptions of 
the events as they occurred. Other news there was which Susy 
read quietly, turning a little pale as her eyes followed the straggling 
lines of her mother’s correspondence, which was not all confined to 
chronicles of her husband’s doings. Madame Du Parc was, it ap- 
peared, actively engaged in a lawsuit with a neighboring proprie- 
tor. She was indignant with her son for leaving her to bear the 
brunt of it all alone. “ Why did he stop away among all those cut- 
throats and conspirators?” The first news of him came from Tours, 
where he had joined General d’Aurelles. Then Mrs. Marney wrote 
that he had been sent back to Paris with a regiment of Mobiles in 
which he had enlisted. 

How many things happen to us up in the air! Whole seasons of 
life seem to pass, not on the ground, not ruled by hard, tangible 
things and details, such as events, and chairs and tables, but over- 
head in some semi mysterious region, where we turn to the vague, 
inscrutable fancies which belong no less to our lives than its facts 
and statistics ; where amid the chimes and the song of birds, or 


210 


MRS. DYMOND. 


among storms and clouds, so much of our secret life is passed. 
Susanna Dymond was a timid woman in some way; half educated 
in the art of feeling, of living beyond. She would not let herself 
face the thoughts which she could not always dispel, nor dared she 
try to measure the load of anxiety at her heart with which she 
lived through all the long months of that glaring summer-time, 
with its cruel, arid hours dividing her from the soft dreams of the 
spring. Those past days had been so lovely, so natural and easy, 
and now it seemed so unnatural to be unhappy. From day to day, 
from hour to hour, she never knew what the fate might be of that 
one person who had changed her life’s secret course. What was it 
that had come to her, a sense of the nothing in life, a bitter impa- 
tience of that terrible decree by which time after time we are swept 
away from our nearest and truest. . . . And then there would dawn 
for her the sense of possible happiness, of companionship which 
might have made a heaven for her of all those anxious days and 
heavy hours, and she dared not even think of it, she must not even 
realize the tender, blessing. Every material comfort was hers. 
Tempy’s affection touched her deeply. She had means to help 
those she loved, she had been faithful to her husband’s trusts. All 
round about her were grateful sights and sounds, his legacy of com- 
fort and happiness. The beacons of golden gorse lighting along 
the high moors ; as the sun sets, the sky turns to gold and Crowcrag 
to purple. Suddenly a great burst of even-song comes from the 
birds overhead. All is peace except for the melodious din of whis- 
perings and chirrupings and sweet repeated notes. She can hear 
the church bell across the lake ringing for evening service ; it is a 
strange confusion of light and sound, of rest and life. But nature 
is often like the children piping in the market-place. There are 
times when beauty only jars and aches and stings. No one seeing 
Susy all through these months could have guessed at the hard fight 
she made, struggling to put aside vain regrets, to live in that whole- 
some hour the present, which is so much better for all of us than 
the past moods and future tenses to which so much of our life is 
strained. No one seeing her calm and smiling on Tempy’s wed- 
ding-day would have guessed at the longing, strange pain and self- 
reproach in her heart. Indeed, some of the neighbors could not 
help contrasting her coldness with Miss Bolsover’s warmth of over- 
flowing tears and feelings. 

Tempy’s wedding had been fixed for the 4th of September, a day 
peaceful and of good omen for the inhabitants of Crowbeck Place, 
one full of terror and alarm for the dwellers in a city not twenty- 
four hours distant from Tarndale. 


WAR AND RUMORS OF WAR. 


211 


While Tempy put on her travelling-dress with Susy’s help, a 
weeping woman, standing among other women, also in tears, over- 
whelmed by disaster upon disaster, by desperate news of armies 
flying and broke'n, terrified by the angry cry of the gathering pop- 
ulace outside the windows, was also taking leave of her home for- 
ever. Her attendants came up one after another to kiss her hand; 
one of them hurriedly tied a black hood over the lady’s beautiful 
hair, helped her off with her gold embroidered mantle, and flung a 
darker wrap upon her shoulder; then followed by one of her faith- 
ful women only, the empress came out of the golden gate of the 
palace, trembling, because some passing urchin called her name. 
Meanwhile the Tarndale bells were ringing across the lake for 
Tempy Bolsover’s wedding-day, and the young couple were speed- 
ing northward on their happy wedding journey; Aunt Fanny, in 
garments gorgeous beyond compare, stood taking leave of the wed- 
ding guests; good Mrs. Bolsover sat subdued and emotioned in a 
corner. Jo had gone off for a solitary walk over the hills, and 
when the last of the company was gone, including Uncle Bolsover, 
who had lately started a tricycle, and who departed zigzagging 
along the road, Susy went up-stairs to her own room and changed 
her silk dress for a gray country gown. She called the children, 
Phraisie and the little brothers, and crossing into the wood beyond 
the road she took the woodland path leading upward to the moors. 
Phraisie, trotting along the lane, looked like a little autumn berry 
herself. The leaves were turning brown upon the trees, and spar- 
kled, repeating the light ; tiny leaves of gold, amber brown, crimson, 
or lingering green overhung the winding way. Presently they 
came to a little pool of all colors — gold with the reflection of the ash- 
trees, crimson where the oak-trees shone — into which the boys flung 
their stones and then set off running ahead once more. Susy still 
followed in silence; Tempy’s happiness had warmed her heart, and 
she was thankful to be quiet in the unconscious company of the 
happy children, glad to be recalled from her sadder world by their 
happy voices. 

From the shade of the wood, with its nuts and birds and squir- 
rels, they come out upon the moor, whence they can see the silent 
tumult of the mountains beyond, crest and crescent, and sweeping 
ridge and delicate sunlit peak silent and very still, yet shifting per- 
petually and changing with every minute’s light. As Susy stood 
there the old cruel feeling which she had hoped to subdue suddenly 
came over her again. Everything seemed so confused, so short, so 
long; so many things to do, so many to undo; there were so many 
words to say, so many to unsay. Ah ! why had she ever tried to 


212 


MBS. DYMOND. 


explain to one who would not understand? Ah! how gladly she 
would have waited for years had he but agreed to it. But with 
him it was a man’s strong, passing feeling, with her it had been a 
new self only then awakened. Now she knew what it all had 
meant as she went back in mind to those early spring days, remem- 
bering the new light in the sky, the beauty of the world, the look 
in people’s faces, the wonder of commonplace. She understood it 
all. 

“Susy,” cries Dermy, “come! come! Phraisie wants you!” 

Little Phraisie had tumbled into a furze-bush, and refused to be 
comforted by her uncles : and her mother, suddenly awakening 
from her dreams, now hurriedly ran to pick her up, to kiss away 
her tears, and wipe her wet cheek with her handkerchief. 


CHAPTER XXVIII. 

THE BLACK SHADOWS. 

“ Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore , 

So do our minutes hasten to their end , 

Each changing place with that which goes before 

As disasters thickened and closed in, Mrs. Marney’s letters became 
more scarce. She was still alone with madame, whose chief anxiety 
was for Max, little as he deserved it. “All those friends of his were 
droles, and he should tell them so,” said the old lady, who seemed to 
think that this was the way to settle matters at once. Then came 
the news of the siege of Paris. -Max was there shut up with the 
rest of them, but Mrs. Marney wrote in happy excitement, for that 
same post had brought a letter from her husband. He was safe at 
head-quarters, and day by day the readers of the Daily Velocipede 
might trace his brilliant career. Emperors, princes, marshals, diplo- 
mats, Marney seemed to be the centre and the leading figure of them 
all. 

It was not till January was nearly over that the confirmation of 
the surrender of Paris reached Tarndale. This news was followed 
by rumors of every sort, and finally by a long rambling letter from 
Mrs. Marney, full of many laments. She had seen but little of Mar- 
ney, who had been at CMlons and Metz most of the time, and who 
was returning to Paris now that the siege was being raised. Did 
Susy know that poor Max had been wounded at Champigny? They 
had had a letter by a balloon from Mademoiselle Fayard, who had 


THE BLACK SHADOWS. 


213 


seen him in the Wallace ambulance. Madame Du Parc also was 
determined to nurse her son, and planned returning to the house at 
Neuilly, which she heard was safe and scarcely injured. 

“ Do not be surprised if you see me after all,” wrote Mrs. Marney, 
“I cannot stop here alone with all I love so far distant from me. 
Ah! Susy, I should have done better to come to you, as you wished, 
but with my husband in danger how could I leave the country?” 

Susy was full of alarm at the thought of her mother’s dangerous 
journey through such a country at such a time. She wrote at once 
to Neuilly and to Avignon, imploring Mrs. Marney to wait until 
things were more settled, promising to meet her later in Paris if 
need be. To her letters she received no answer, and a week passed 
full of anxiety. Jo was at Cambridge, she had no one but Mr. 
Bolsover to consult. She might as well have talked to a looking- 
glass as to the sympathizing little man, who invariably reflected her 
own expression of face. One day Susy thought of telegraphing to 
Neuilly to ask if her mother had arrived; the answer came sooner 
than Susanna had dared expect it, early next morning before she 
was up — 

“ Madame Du Parc, Neuilly, to Mrs. Dymond, Crowbeck Place , 
Tarndale. 

“Your mother is here very ill; pray come.” 

Susy did not wait to consult Mr. Bolsover again; she wrote a line 
to Mrs. Bolsover, sent her little Phraisie to the Hall with the nurse, 
and started at once by an early train to town. 

And thus it happened that at three o’clock in the morning, awak- 
ening out of a commonplace dream, Susy found herself on board 
a steamer nearing the shores of France, with the stars shining 
through the glass in the roof of the cabin. A lamp is swinging, 
some of the passengers are preparing to land, wrapping rugs and 
parcels together. There are dull sounds and tramplings overhead, 
and a couple of low voices are whispering to each other such things 
as people whispered in that disastrous year of 1871, when all voices 
were telling of changes and death and trouble, and people gone 
away and families ruined and separated. “We shall be in direct- 
ly,” says the first voice, that of the stewardess, “but I don’t think 
you will find one of them left as you expect.” 

“Ah! those Prussians!” says the second speaker, in that whisper- 
ing voice which people use in darkened places and at night; and 
still the steamer paddles on. Susy’s own thoughts are too anxiously 


214 


MRS. DYMOND. 


travelling ahead for her to take so keen an interest as she might 
have done at any other time in this new and unexpected phase of 
life. Is her journey too late, she wonders, is her mother still alive, 
still calling for her, and wanting her? Susy is superstitious, as anx- 
ious people are. The two melancholy voices depress her, and seem 
like an echo of evil things to come; the look of her own hands lying 
listless in her black lap frightens her. She starts up impatiently, 
and begins to hope again as unreasonably as she had feared. Is 
everything changed, is nothing changed? Can it be that she shall 
find it all as in old days when troubles were not, nor wars to call 
men from their quiet toil to join the ranks of devastating armies? 
Presently they reached the French coast ; it is time to go up on deck 
with the rest of the passengers. Susy, keeping to the protection of 
the other two women, comes up on deck, and sees the dark line of 
the quai : lights go by, ropes are hauled in, and once more Susanna 
hears the familiar French sing-song of the people exclaiming and 
calling to one another. The voices sound melancholy, but that may 
be her fancy, or because it is a cock-crow sort of hour. Mrs. Dy- 
mond, carrying her hand-bag, walks along to the hotel in company 
with her fellow-travellers. She had come across by chance with a 
party of Cook’s tourists availing themselves of the escort of the great 
circumnavigator of our days, whose placards and long experience 
seemed to guarantee the safety of his adventurous followers. The 
only other ladies of the party were English women like Susanna 
herself, and also evidently travelling with a purpose. One, the friend 
of the stewardess, an old bedizened creature belonging to the race 
of the wandering British spinster, walked ahead still bemoaning her- 
self as she went, the other, a handsome young woman, of sober dress 
and appearance, stopped short suddenly as she crossed the quai by 
Mrs. Dymond’s side. 

“ Look!” she said, “ a German!” and with a thrill they recognize 
a brazen spike and the gleam of a helmet as the sentinel passes 
steadily up and down under a lamp-post in front of a garish-looking 
restaurant, of which all the doors and windows are awake and flaring 
with gas, and evidently expecting guests. 

Susanna, for all her sad preoccupations, stopped short with the 
rest of them, and experienced a curious thrill seeing the first ripple 
of that brazen tide which had overspread the desolate country of 
France. There the whole story seemed told as she watched the 
spike of the helmet and the big boots steadily pacing the pavement. 
She wondered at the courage of the English girl who went straight up 
to the sentry, and asked him in abruptest German, “How soon was 
he going back to Berlin?” The helmet stopped, and answered good- 


THE BLACK SHADOWS. 


215 


naturedly enough, “ He didn’t know, the King was at Rlieims, they 
expected to leave in a day or two.” He was a big, tawny young 
fellow with a handsome, heavy face. Mademoiselle Celestine, the 
waitress at the Hotel et Restaurant des Strangers, pouring out her 
cafes-au-lait, told the passengers that he and his companions were 
tres gentils, they had done no harm. They had good appetites, but 
the mayor paid for all they ate; she didn’t believe the stories people 
told. They were there with the general and his staff. . . . Mademoi- 
selle Celestine would have gone on blessing her enemies at greater 
length, but people from above, from around, from below, from within, 
from without, began calling out “Gargon, gargon /” bells rang vio- 
lently, Cook’s tourists shouted, and Britons demanded their suppers. 

The house was so crowded, so noisy and uncomfortable, that Susy 
and her two casual acquaintances, after listening for some minutes 
to the landlady’s glowing descriptions of blazing fires and velvet 
sofas at the railway-station close by, started boldly into the night to 
find this haven and to await the six-o’clock train there. 

A few gas jets were flickering at the station, where they found 
looking-glasses and velvet sofas according to promise. In the first- 
class waiting-room a group of officers in white uniforms with many 
accoutrements were dozing away the time, with their boots and 
swords extended upon the chairs and couches. 

Susy looked at them and instinctively left them to their slumbers, 
and went into the second-class waiting-room with her companions 
and sank down into the first-come seat. 

A lady and a little girl were already sitting upon the wooden 
bench beside her. It was too dark to see their faces, but not too 
dark to hear the lady’s plaintive voice — “What a journey! what 
nervous terrors! what delays! after six months’ enforced absence to 
return to a country in such a state — no lamps, no omnibus, no trains 
to depart, Germans everywhere.” (Two tall, jangling officers with 
great cloaks and boots come in from the next room, look round, and 
walk away.) “Ah!” shrieks the lady, with fresh exclamations of 
alarm, “and I without a passeport ! I could not get one where I 
was, at Yittington, a little village in the Eastern Conte, nor have I 
one for that child, who only yesterday was studying her piano at a 
school, for why should she lose her time because her country is be- 
ing ravaged?” And so the poor lady talks on unheeded, finally 
nodding off to sleep. The time passed slow and strange and chill, 
the dawn began to grow, Susy was sitting by a window looking on 
the platform. A veil of early dew was upon everything, and figures 
began to move like dreams across the vapor. At last a train arrived 
with snorts and clamor about five o’clock, conveying among other 


216 


MRS. DYMOND. 


passengers some wounded Prussians. Then for the first time, 
Susy, forgetting her own preoccupation, realized the horrors of 
war; and as she looked again she saw that these were the victors, 
these wounded, wearied men, scarce able to drag themselves along. 
Some were carried in their companions’ arms, some sick and languid 
came leaning on their guns, some again were loaded with spoil and 
bags. One soldier passed the window carrying a drawing-room 
clock under his arm, and a stuffed bag like an old-clothes-man’s 
upon his back. The wounded were to change carriages, and went 
hobbling from one train to another; among the rest came a poor 
Prussian soldier, pale, wasted, with one leg amputated, slowly, pain- 
fully dragging on a single crutch, with another man to help him, 
and in the crowded rush the crutch slipped and the soldier fell to 
the ground half fainting. His companion tried in vain to raise him; 
not one of the shadowy figures moved to his help. Susy with a 
cry of pity started up, but the glass door was locked and she could 
not get out. It was a Frenchman, at last, who came forward and 
picked the poor fellow up, helping to carry him, with looks of aver- 
sion and deeds of kindness. 

And then, at last, the way being clear, the weary Prussians having 
departed, another train drew up in the early morning light, and 
Susy found herself travelling towards Paris and her journey’s end. 
The light grew, and with it came the thought of the coming day; 
what would it bring to her of good or evil? This much of good it 
must bring, that she should be with her mother. And Du Parc, 
did she hope to see him? She could not have answered or acknowl- 
edged, even to herself, what she hoped. From her mother she 
hoped to hear something of Max’s doings, and to get news of that 
one person in all the world who seemed most to exist for her. She 
longed to see him, to speak to him once more, to get some certain- 
ty of his well-being, to be re-assured by one word, one look. She 
dreaded the meeting, its inadequate explanation, its heart-breaking, 
disappointing silence. . . . 

The English girl opposite had taken off her hat and smoothed her 
long plaits of hair, and now, with a Testament in her hand, was 
reading her early orison. The morning grew, the sunrise touched 
the wide country, they passed orchards in flower, green spring shin- 
ing upon every cottage, and pleasant garden, and spreading fields. 
One little orchard remained fixed in Susanna’s mind, pink with blos- 
soms, and in the midst upreared the figure of a Prussian soldier in 
full uniform, stretching his arms while the children of the house- 
hold clustered round about him, and the rays of the rising sun flash- 
ed from his brass helmet. 


THREE MILES ALONG TIIE ROAD. 


217 


As they travelled on, stopping at the various stations, more pas- 
sengers got in, all with the same miserable story, sometimes piteous, 
sometimes half-laughable. An old lady with frizzed curls described 
her home as she had found it after eighty Prussians had inhabited 
her house; the linen, the crockery, the clocks all stolen and spoiled, 
the flowers down-trampled. “They even took my son’s cigars, 
which I had hidden in my wardrobe,” said the poor lady, waxing 
more and more wrath; “ and the monsters left a written paper in 
the box, ‘ Merci pour les bons cigar es P Ah! that emperor,” says the 
old lady, “to think what he has brought us to, with his flatteries, 
and his vanity, and his grand army.” 

Another woman, dressed in black, sadder, more quiet, who seem- 
ed to be returning home utterly worn out, now spoke for the first 
time. 

“One thing we must not forget,” she says, “ we have had twenty 
years of peace, and yet only one man in France has had the courage 
to adhere to the fallen emperor.” 

Susy’s heart failed her as they neared their journey’s end, for they 
came to a desolate country of broken bridges, of closed houses, of 
windows and palings smashed, of furniture piled in sheds along the 
line, and as they neared Paris, to a wide and devastated plain across 
which the snow was beginning to drift. The plain spread dim and 
dreary, sprinkled with ghosts of houses, skeletons of walls that had 
once enclosed homes, now riddled and charred with burned beams, 
and seams and cracks, telling the same sad story, reiterated again 
and again, of glorious conquest and victory. 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

THREE MILES ALONG TIIE ROAD. 

“ With what sharp checks I in myself am shent 
When into reason's audit I do go, 

And by just counts myself a bankrupt know 
Of all those goods which heaven to me hath lent , 
finable quite to pay even Nature's rent, 

Which unto it by birthright I do owe .” — Sonnets. 

When Susy stepped out of the train and looked around, she was 
struck by the change in the people standing all about the station. 
They had strange, grave, scared faces; they were more like English 
people than French people; every woman was in mourning, which 
added to the sadness of the place. A cold east wind was blowing 


218 


MRS. DYMOND. 


up the silent street and across the open place in front of the railway. 
A man came to offer to carry her bag; when she told him she want- 
ed a carriage to take her to Neuilly, he shrugged his shoulders — “A 
carriage !” said he, “where am I to find a carriage? the Prussians 
have made cutlets of our horses. ” 

Susy looked round ; there were porters and trucks in plenty, but 
not a carriage was to be seen. It was a long^ weary tramp after a 
night spent in travelling, but there was no help for it, and after a 
minute’s hesitation, Susy told the man to take up her bag. She had 
walked farther in old days when she was coming and going and 
giving her music-lessons. 

The man trudged in silence; it was a good three miles’ walk 
across the boulevards, and by streets and shops; some were open, 
some were not yet re-assured enough to let down their closed shut- 
ters. One of the very first sights which met Susy along the road 
was a dispirited, straggling regiment marching into Paris from the 
frontier, torn, shabby, weary, the mud -stained officers marching 
with the men. These men were boys, for the most part half grown, 
half clothed, dragging on with a dull and piteous look of hunger 
and fatigue, while the piercing wind came whistling up the street. 
“ They are disarmed, that is why they look so cold,” said the porter, 
stopping for a moment to look after them. “ There is one who can 
keep up no longer;” as he spoke, one of the poor fellows fell out of 
the ranks, too much exhausted to go on any farther; a halt was 
called, and many of them sank down on the pavement just where 
they stopped. 

The way seemed longer and longer; more than once she was 
obliged to rest upon the benches along the road. It was now about 
twelve o’clock, the sun had come out bright though without warmth, 
and it somewhat cheered the shivering city. They reached the Arc 
at last, still swathed in its wooden shields. Susy thought of her 
last sunset drive, and of the glories in which the stony heroes of the 
past had then brandished their spears. Here Susy saw an empty 
carriage coming out of a side street, and she told the porter to se- 
cure it. 

The man thanked her for the money she put into his hand as she 
sank tired out into a corner of the coach. The driver leaned back 
upon his seat, and seeing she was tired and prepared to pay, began 
to make difficulties. 

“ Villa du Parc, Avenue de Neuilly?” says the coachman ; “ you 
will not find any houses standing in the Avenue de Neuilly. The 
Prussians have taken care of that. I will drive you if you like, but 
you will have your course for nothing.” 


TIIREE MILES ALONG TIIE ROAD. 


219 


“Pray drive on,” said Susy, wearily, “I will tell you when to 
stop.” 

“When I tell you that there are no houses left to drive to!” per- 
sisted the coachman; “but I must be paid all the same, whether the 
house is there or not.” 

“Yes, of course you shall be paid,” said poor Susy, utterly tired, 
frightened, impatient, scarcely knowing what to fear or to expect. 

Madame Du Parc’s letter had been dated from the villa, but Su- 
sanna’s heart began to fail her as she drove on. They drove past 
blackened walls, by trees half destroyed and charred, and breaking 
out into pale fresh green among the burned and broken branches; 
and by gardens all trampled and ravished. 

Susanna was almost too weary to think, too sadly impressed to be 
frightened. She seemed to herself to have gone through some great 
battle, some long and desperate siege, and now again, when the vic- 
tory had been so sorely won, the enemy repulsed with such desper- 
ate resolution, now that she was so tired, so worn, came a fresh as- 
sault more difficult to withstand than anything that had gone 
before. Should she see him again, would he be there at home once 
more, was he well of his wound, was it — was it Max or her mother 
that she had come for? she suddenly asked herself, with an angry, 
desperate effort. Mrs. Dymond, absorbed in her own thoughts, had 
driven past the house without seeing it, and the coachman had 
stopped of his own accord in a sunny, windy corner, where three 
ruined streets divided from the broad avenue. 

“ Well!” says he, “I told you how it would be.” 

She looked blankly up • and down the road ; she scarcely knew 
where she was. Then, as she looked again, she remembered once 
seeing Du Parc coming up one of these streets in his workman’s 
blouse. 

“ Am I to turn up these roads — am I to go on?” cries the coach- 
man, again stamping his wooden shoes upon the box to warm his 
feet. 

“I will get out; follow me,” says Susy, suddenly remembering 
where they had come to, and she sprang out and walked back along 
the avenue to the villa, which was not far distant. It seemed like 
a miracle to see the old green gates actually standing, and the villa 
unaltered in the shaded garden. The gates were splintered and half 
broken down, the garden trampled over, but the house was little 
changed and stood in the cold spring sunshine, with no sign of the 
terrible wave of war which had passed over the village. Even the 
weathercock was safe, glittering and quivering changefully, for the 
east wind had gone round to some warmer quarter. A sick woman, 


220 


MRS. DYMOND. 


propped up by pillows, was sitting out in the garden, a stout old 
lady was trotting backward and forward from the house with wraps 
and bottles and all that miserable paraphernalia of sickness. (How 
well one knows the look of it; one could almost believe that pain 
and suffering and sleepless nights came in those bottles and round 
china pots. Nervous miseries, brown-studies, blue-devils, pink, yel- 
low, white decoctions, there they all stand waiting to be taken at 
bedtime or dinner-time, or whatever the proper time may be. ) 

Poor Mary Marney was looking wild and worn, and strangely 
changed in these few months. 

“The wind blows chill,” she was saying, querulously. “ If only 
I could get into that patch of sunshine ; but I can’t move, I can’t get 
there,” she cried, suddenly breaking down. 

“La! la! la! la!” says Madame Du Parc, extra noisy, trying to be 
cheerful. “What is there to prevent you being in the sunshine? 
Ale!” adds madame, “if it was not for this rheumatic arm I could 
carry you there myself. Denise! what are you about?” 

Susy stood frozen in the gate-way for a moment, too shocked to 
move. 

Was this her mother, this her busy, hard-working mother, thus 
changed, thus terribly altered in so short a time? 

While she paused, Mary, looking up, saw her daughter, and gave 
a faint cry. Madame also looks up. 

“A la bonne heure!” says the one cheerful, unemotional person 
present. “You see she come at once, and I was right,” cries the 
old lady, rushing to the front, and bestowing two hearty kisses on 
Susy’s pale cheeks. 

All madame’s preventions were gone, Susy was in her highest 
favor. 

“You are a googirl to come,” she repeated, pronouncing it as if 
it was one single word. 

“Mamma, my dear! my dear!” Susy whispered, kneeling down 
by her mother’s side, for she could not stand. “I have come to 
fetch you, I have come to make you well again, mamma! mamma!” 
She hardly knew what she said in her low, tender whisper; but 
Mary saw her looks of love, felt her warm, panting breath, and the 
quick beat of the pulses, and asked no more. 

Madame took Susy up-stairs after a while. The house had been 
used by the ambulance corps. There were beds everywhere — in the 
dining-room and the drawing-room. Most of the appliances of the 
ambulance had remained. 

Susy followed her hostess into one of the rooms,; it had been the 
little boys’ nursery ; it was now full of empty iron bedsteads. 


THREE MILES ALONG THE ROAD. 


221 


The old lady made her sit down on one of them, as she told her, 
not without kindness, but plainly enough, what the doctor had 
said. 

“ He had declared Mrs. Marney to be suffering from an aneurism; 
her very life depended on perfect calm and quiet. Calm! quiet! I 
ask you how that is to be procured? And that vile husband! Oh! 
I could tell her how deceived she is in him, but she will not hear 
reason;” and madame, in that peculiar voice in which people repeat 
scandal and bad news, assured Susy that Marney was not far off, he 
was comfortably established in the neighborhood, and absenting 
himself on purpose. Max had heard things in his ambulance. A 
wounded man there had had dealings with Marney. “ We will go 
together, ” says madame, ‘ 4 we will make inquiry. When we are 
chased from this, as my son declares will be the case, your dear 
mother must not be abandoned. I must go back; I have no rents, 
nothing to depend upon here. In the south Max has a little farm, 
which will keep us both. I sent for you, my poor child, when I 
heard the doctor’s terrible announce, and we will arrange presently 
what we should do. Here is your old room; the doctor of the am- 
bulance has been living here ; you see nothing is new. It is all the 
same.” 

There is something which appeals to most imaginations in places 
scarcely altered, when those who inhabit them are so changed. Susy 
looked round as she sank wearily down upon the old creaking, wood- 
en bedstead. How often before this had she cried herself to sleep 
upon it. She looked at the whitewashed walls, at the shadow of the 
window-bar travelling across the tiles; then a curious shock remind- 
ed her of the difference of the now and of the time to which she had 
travelled back again. . . . 

She came down to find her mother impatiently wailing for her. 
Mrs. Marney had been carried into the sitting-room, and Susy’s hope 
sank afresh as she looked at the changed face turned to the door, 
and expecting her so eagerly. One little crisp, familiar wave of 
curly hair beneath her cap seemed the only thing which remained 
of Susy’s mother as she had been but a few weeks ago. 

Poor Mrs. Marney was worn by many sorrows and anxieties be- 
sides her illness. Of Marney she knew scarcely anything, and that 
was the chief of her many pains. 

“ Oh, Susy! I would not trouble you with my troubles, ” she said, 
“but I have gone through more than I could bear. After the first 
weeks at Avignon he scarcely wrote; he scarcely gave one sign, and 
I knew not what to fear. I have been mad to see him. Madame 
has said cruel things which I seem to have no strength to hear. I 


222 


MRS. DYMOND. 


wrote to him when I first came here. And now I hear nothing, I 
know nothing.” 

Susy turned scarlet; but she soothed her mother again with many 
gentle words and caresses. 


CHAPTER XXX. 

ADIEU LES SONGES D’OR. 

“ Oh! how shall summer's honey breath hold out 
Against the wreckful siege of battering days?" 

Things come about simply and naturally which seem very terri- 
ble and full of emotion beforehand. Here was Susanna, after all 
that had happened, standing with Madame Du Parc by Max’s bed- 
side, and neither of the three seemed moved beyond their ordinary 
looks and ways. Had they parted yesterday in a garden of roses 
they could not have met more quietly, though they met with disas- 
ter all about, among omens and forebodings of worse evil to come. 
For a moment the room seemed to Susy to shake beneath her feet, 
but it was only for a moment. The sight of his pale worn face, so 
sad and strangely marked with lines of care, and yet so familiar 
withal, called her back to the one thought of late so predominant in 
her mind : what she could do for him, how she could help him best. 
Of sentiment and personal feeling she could not think at such an 
hour. 

Great events carry people along into a different state of mood and 
being, to string them to some greater chord than that of their own 
personality. In all these strange days and stirring episodes Susanna 
seemed to herself but one among the thousands who were facing the 
crisis of their fate, a part of all the rest, and yet at the same time 
she knew that every feeling she had ever known was there keenly 
alive, unchanged by change. 

“ Ah ! we have had a narrow escape,” said madame. “ They got 
the ball out of his chest; a little more and it was in his lungs. But 
he is well now, and he was able to save his man. Eh, Max?” 

“Save my man, mamma?” said Max, smiling faintly. “There 
was not much of him saved, poor fellow. I pulled what was left of 
him from under his horse, then some one helped me up. By-the- 
way, can you arrange for Adolphe to return to the villa to-morrow? 
Caron will bring a carriage for us.” 

‘ ‘ Why, of course, comment done. I will speak to the Bister at 
once,” said Madame Du Parc, jumping up. Then she paused. 


ADIEU LES S0NGES D’OR. 


223 


“ Susy has something to ask you,” she said. “Who was it, Max, 
who saw Marney at St. Cloud? Who can give us his address?” 

“It was Adolphe,” said Max, shortly. “You had better leave 
Mr. Marney to his own affairs.” 

“ I wish it were possible,” Susy said, with a sigh; “but my moth- 
er cannot rest day or night. I am driven to look for him. It is 
only to help her that I am here. ” 

“You will find Adolphe in the next room,” said Du Parc, look- 
ing disappointed. “ My mother will guide you. Good-bye; do not 
stay now,” and he put out his hand. 

He spoke advisedly. He was still weak from illness. This meet- 
ing was almost too much for his strength, and he dreaded one kind 
word from Susy, lest, like a woman, he should break into tears. 
These were not times for tears of sensibility. There had been too 
many tears shed, Max used to think. Statesmen wept when they 
should have resolved; made speeches where silence would have been 
more to the purpose; and Du Parc felt that for the present, for 
Susy’s sake and for his own, they must be as strangers together. 
His was a somewhat old-fashioned creed, but one which, after all, has 
kept the world going in honor and self-respect since the beginning 
of all honor, and Du Parc, having made up his mind, was not in the 
habit of wasting his time by undoing it again. He was but half a 
Frenchman, but he loved his country, its welfare, its good name be- 
yond all other things. For the last four weeks he had lain patient- 
ly waiting for his wound to heal; now that his strength was return- 
ing he longed to be at work once more. It was little enough, but it 
was something. One more pair of arms to help to keep order in 
the chaos, one more recruit on the side of justice and of law. 

Max followed Susanna’s tall, retreating figure to the doer with the 
sick man’s wistful looks. She stopped for a moment, looked back, 
faintly smiled, and passed on. The two were in deeper sympathy 
in their silent estrangement than in any romantic protests and ex- 
planations. The next room had been a grand lady’s boudoir once. 
It was still hung with a few smart pictures and ornamental glasses. 
A young soldier in undress, with a wounded shoulder, who was 
standing in a window, greeted them cheerfully, and immediately be- 
gan fumbling with his good arm at his red trousers pocket. 

“ Good -morning, Madame Du Parc,” he cried. “Your son told 
me he was expecting you. I want to show you this. ” And he pro- 
duced a purse, in .which with some coppers, was a piece of his own 
bone wrapped up in newspaper. 

The next man to him, who was bedridden, brought a bit of his 
knee-cap from under the pillow. He had a handsome, brown face, 

15 


224 


MRS. DYMOND. 


and lay looking up wearily; he couldn’t sleep, he was never at ease, 
he said ; his comrade had been writing home for him. ‘ ‘ He won’t 
tell them of his wound,” cried the man in the window. “He made 
me say that he had a slight sprain in the leg,” and the good-natured 
young fellow roared with laughter at the joke. “ Never mind, we 
shall see thee a captain yet, Jean!” he said, gayly. 

“A captain! not even a corporal,” answers poor Jean. 

Some other men who were playing cards and dominoes at a table 
in the centre of the room looked up and greeted Madame Du Parc, 
who seemed to' know them all. One poor fellow who was looking 
over a comrade’s cards came striding forward with both hands in 
his trousers-pockets. This was the Adolphe whom Max had saved 
at the risk of his own life. He was a sergeant, a superior sort of 
man, with a handsome face. He had been a carpenter wdien the 
war broke out. He had been wounded in the side. He had a wife 
and three little children, he told Susanna. He was going home tq 
them, “but I shall never be able to work for them again,” he said ; 4 
sadly, and Susy could hardly repress a cry of compassion as he 
showed her his stumped fingers— they had been clean cut off both 
hands. 

“ Tu vivrasde tes rentes,” cried one of the card-players, cheerfully, 
and again the poor fellows all laugh, not heartlessly, but with the 
real courage and humility of endurance, which is more touching 
than any bitter complaints. Adolphe, who had been taken prisoner, 
had seen Marney at Versailles in the Prussians’ head-quarters, and 
it was Marney who had helped his escape, giving him money and 
also certain commissions to execute in Paris. Adolphe, being ques- 
tioned, told Susy of a place where Marney was always to be heard 
of ; he had often carried letters for him there— a cafe at St. Cloud — 
it was easy enough to find. While they were talking, madame, who 
hated being quiet, was walking round the room with her basket on 
her arm, distributing various things which she thought might be 
useful to the patients. She offered a newspaper to one of them, who 
refused it gayly, with thanks. 

“I never read them,” said he, “since the war began; they are 
nothing but lies. Halloo ! Who wants the last number of the Fausses 
JVouvelles ?” he shouts. 

A few beds off lay a poor Englishman. He had enlisted in the 
line. He had been with General Failly at Lyons. “He has been 
very ill, poor fellow!” said madame, as Susy joined her. “John 
Perkins, here is an English lady come to see you.” 

“See me! There is not much of me fit to see,” muttered poor 
John Perkins, wearily, pulling up the sheet over his face. 


ADIEU LES SONGES D’OE. 


225 


The Sister in charge now came up. She was dressed in her Sis- 
ters’ dress, with a white coiffe and loose gray sleeves. She had a fine 
and sensitive face, and spoke like a person of some distinction, but 
she seemed distressed and overtasked. 

“Your son has a home to go to; he is ready to go, the doctor tells 
me. So many of my patients would be the better for a change, but 
I have nowhere to send them. Everything is in ruiiis. Our con- 
valescent hospital has been wrecked; the furniture has been given 
for ambulances. All is gone, all is destroyed. We do all we can 
for them. Mr. Wallace says they are to have anything they want.” 

It was a handsome house, polished and shining ; there were Eng- 
lishmen to wait, carved ceilings, tall windows, and yet it was a sad 
place to think of. Susy came away haunted by pain. Madame was 
not a comforting companion, the consciousness of all this suffering 
rendered her morose and irritable. She was anxious about her son, 
and she had the fate of her old friend, Mademoiselle Fayard, on her 
mind. Mademoiselle Fayard, after being driven from Neuilly, had 
lodged over an undertaker’s shop in the same street as the hospital, 
and thither madame insisted on going. 

The young undertaker received them in the uniform of the Na- 
tional Guard. “ Mademoiselle Fayard and her brother were gone,” 
he said, “but their address was always to be had at the convent of 
the Petites Soeurs.” In reply to inquiries about himself, he an- 
swered, blushing, that he had volunteered. He had been in three 
battles and had got his discharge ; he had been wounded. His wife 
had given him up for dead. He found her in mourning for him 
when he got back. . . . 

It was but a few hours since Susy had left her home, and already 
it seemed to her natural to hear all these histories, to see ruin and 
trouble on every side, and incongruous things which no longer sur- 
prised her. A few minutes later she was standing with Madame 
Du Parc in the old court-yard of a convent. A pile of knapsacks was 
heaped against the old gray wall, some soldiers were coming in at 
the gate-way, and two nuns were advancing to receive them. The 
soldiers looked well pleased, and the nuns, too, seemed amused. 
They were all on the best of terms. The nuns smile and fold their 
hands, the soldiers laugh and nod, and scamper up-stairs to their al- 
lotted cells. “Poor fellows! they would have had to sleep out-of- 
doors all night if we had not taken them in,” said the nuns. “We 
had one ward of the infirmary empty, and the Superior said the sol- 
diers might occupy it.” The Sister went on to tell Madame Du Parc 
how they had kept their infirmary open almost all through the siege, 
until one morning when a poor old fellow had gone out early to get 


226 


MHS. DYMOND. 


a drink at the fountain in the garden, and an ohus fell and killed 
him, “just there where the sun is shining,” said the Sceur Marie Jo- 
seph. “All of the nuns wanted to go to him, but Bonne Mere or- 
dered us down on our knees and went alone. The Prussians seemed 
to have got the range of our convent, for the shells fell at intervals 
all that day, and we moved the old men, not without difficulty and 
danger. We had hardly got them out when a great bomb came 
crashing into the infirmary. You can see for yourself,” said the Sis- 
ter, opening the infirmary door. 

All was restored again; the holes were mended in the floor with 
squares of new wood, the orderly beds were in their places, and the 
old men safe back in their beds. 

“Nothing happens to us,” said an old fellow, with a long white 
beard, sitting up in bed; “here we lie, tied by the leg.” 

“I have been to Prussia,” says another, in an arm-chair, beside 
him, with a white nightcap pulled over his ears, talking on continu- 
ously, whether anybody listened to him or not ; “I have pillaged, 
too, in my time, but, thank God \Diou mar chi he pronounced it], we 
are not bad men like those Prussians. We used to take to eat be- 
cause we were hungry. We didn’t pillage for nothing at all. No, 
no ; we are soldiers, not bandits, ” says he, bringing his hand down 
upon his knee. “If we hadn’t been betrayed we should have 
smashed those Prussians.” 

“Yes, we should have smashed them!” cries a third old feeble 
fellow on his pillow just beyond. 

A lady in black was sitting by his bedside, a sweet-faced woman. 
A dame de charite they called her, an Englishwoman, living in Paris, 
who gave herself up to visiting the poor. When they asked the 
nuns about Mademoiselle Fayard, they said she, too, was well known 
at the convent, and often came to read to the old men. She was 
lodging close by with her brother, next door to the Carmelite con- 
vent in the adjoining street. Mrs. Dymond was longing to get home 
to her own sick woman again, and Madame Du Parc promised that 
this should be their last visit. Susanna could not help thinking of 
Dante’s journey as she followed madame’s steady steps. They came 
out into the street, and presently found themselves standing in the 
Rue d’Enfer in front of an old grim house, with gray and silent 
walls, against which came the beating sleet and the cutting winds. 
Two men were at work in the yard carting away a heap of stones 
and plaster. A little girl was standing at the door, too much en- 
grossed by the bomb-shells to understand what they said at first. 
“Look! they are removing the ruins from the chapel; the bombs 
fell just there, mesdames, piercing right through into the cellar be- 


ADIEU LES SONGES D’OR. 


227 


Death. The director of the ladies escaped as by a miracle. We 
only came home yesterday. Our lodge is in an indescribable state.” 
By degrees the little girl was made to understand what it was they 
wanted, and after consultation with her mother, who was at work 
in doors, she came back with the news that Mademoiselle Fayard 
was at home, up-stairs at the very top of the house, and Susy and 
her old guide now climbed flight after flight of stone steps, bound 
together, as in old French houses, by wrouglit-iron balusters. At 
the very top of the house, under the skylight, they found the door 
to which they had been directed, and rang a bell, which echoed 
in the emptiness. Presently they heard steps, and Mademoiselle 
Fayard, the shadow of herself, so thin, changed, worn, limp, opened 
the door. Madame’s grunts of compassionate recognition nearly 
overcame the poor lady as she fell weeping into her old friend’s 
arms. She flitted before them exclaiming, and hastily opened the 
door of the room where she had been sitting with her brother. It 
was a long, low room in the roof of the old house, littered with 
books and packing-cases. They had prepared to fly at one time, 
Mademoiselle Fayard explained, and had commenced to pack. 

“ Brother! brother! here is Madame Du Parc,” cries the ghost of 
Mademoiselle Fa} r ard to the skeleton of her brother, who was sit- 
ting in an old dressing-gown by a smouldering stove in the semi- 
darkness of the room. The old lady had already lit up her lamp, 
and as they came in she hospitably turned it up with her trem- 
bling hands, while he disencumbered two chairs for the ladies. 
“ Oh! my poor frens,” says madame, sitting heavily down. “ What 
have we all suffered!” Susy could only look her pity as she lis- 
tened to the sad reiteration of cold, hunger, hope deferred, dark- 
ness, and anxiety. 

The Fayards were both speaking together; they described their 
past alarms, their weary waiting, how the food and the fuel failed 
first, and then the light ; they used to go to bed at seven o’clock, and 
lie awake the long hours listening to the boom of the guns ; how to- 
wards the end of the siege the bombs began to fall in their streets 
and upon the houses all around them; the old lady and gentleman 
felt the crash of the first that fell into the linen-closet of the ladies 
of the Carmelite convent next door; the pompiers had hardly put 
out the fire when another bomb broke into the chapel. The petite 
sceur touriere, who was arranging the altar, stood alone and unhurt 
in the midst of the falling timber and glass, but the pulpit was de- 
stroyed, and the marble columns were injured; the sisters could not 
escape because of their vow, and had to remain in the cellars. For 
a whole fortnight, every day, the priest went down to say mass, 


MRS. DYMOND. 


though it was dangerous to cross the court, for bomb after bomb 
kept falling there. 

“Once we went away,” said Mademoiselle Fayard, in her extin- 
guished voice, “but we had to come back for food. Our ticket was 
of no use in any other - district, and we thought it best to remain at 
home. Many days I have waited for three hours in the pouring 
rain to obtain our daily allowance of food. We could hardly cook 
it, we had no fuel left. Oh! it was bitter cold,” said she; “ we have 
endured very much; and if only it had been to some good end we 
should not have felt our sufferings.” The old people promised to 
come over very soon. They asked affectionately after Max. Made- 
moiselle Fayard had been to see him in the ambulance as soon as 
she heard of his wound. He,- too, had been to see them during the 
siege. He had brought them a couple of new-laid eggs, “as a pres- 
ent,” said the old lady. “I know he paid fifteen francs for the 
two. Oh, madame, the price of everything! Cabbages were five 
francs apiece! Elephants, monkeys, cats, all were at exorbitant 
prices. ” 

As the two women turned homeward, the streets were full of 
people in black, with sad faces; they passed soldiers and more sol- 
diers, all disarmed and ragged to look upon, and Francs-Tireurs in 
top-boots lined with old newspapers. As they passed the Luxem- 
bourg gardens they could see the tents of the shivering soldiers 
sleeping within. Many of them were sick, just out of ambulance, 
some had not even tents. 

Madame Du Parc walked on steadily, and Susy hurried after. 
They were both anxious to get home, but as they passed a booksell- 
er’s shop on the quai, Madame Du Parc went in for one minute to 
ask some questions about M. Caron, who was a friend of the shop- 
keeper. M. Caron was down near Corbeil looking after his mills; 
he was coming up next day ; nobody was doing any business. The 
bookseller himself had only opened his shop for company. He di- 
rected them to a coach-yard close by, where they now went in search 
of a carriage, and thought themselves lucky to find one. Their jour- 
ney home was enlivened by the coachman’s remarks. What did 
they think of his horse? It was one of three left out of a hundred 
and fifty. The man stopped of his own accord before the Column 
of Victory. A flag was flowing from the top, garlands had been 
twined about its base. ‘ ‘ A mirliton, that is what it looks like, ” he 
cried, cracking his whip gayly. 

As he spoke, a little cart was slowly passing by, in which sat two 
women dressed in black. 


ST. CLOUD AFTER THE STORM. 


229 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

ST. CLOUD AFTER THE STORM. 

“ Or of the church-clock and the chimes 
Sing here beneath the shade 
That half mad thing of witty rhymes 
Which you last April made . ...” 

Max and Adolphe came back next day in the carriage M. Caron 
had sent for them. They were a pale and depressed-looking couple. 
As their strength returned day by day, in common with many of 
the wounded, they seemed to feel their country’s cruel wounds more 
and more keenly. Bourbaki was not alone in his despair and pas- 
sionate regret. Many men committed suicide, many lost their senses, 
but others pulled themselves together and bravely, by degrees, began 
to reconstruct their lives once more. Max tried to make a rally 
when he came in to see his old friend Mrs. Marney. But he could 
not put away the lines in his face, the hollow rings round his eyes; 
he laughed, but it was only a melancholy echo of long-past gayety. 

“Why, Maxwell, ye look thin and half -starved, and yet none the 
less handsome for that,” said Mrs. Marney, smiling faintly, and in- 
deed what she said was true enough. As he stood there in his tom 
and shabby uniform, he seemed to the three women more stately 
than any general in brilliant orders and triumphant prosperity. 

“We must keep him with us, and make him strong and fat!” says 
madame, who was the least changed of the party as she stood beside 
her son in her Rembrandt-like old age. 

“Are ye a general, Max, or only a colonel?” said Mrs. Marney. 
‘ ‘ I wish you would tell them to cease firing their cannon and to 
leave us in peace !” 

“I am neither a general nor a colonel,” said Max, gravely, “and 
as for telling them to leave off, I might as well speak to the winds 
and the seas. Our troubles are not over; you must let your daugh- 
ter take you to her home, madame; this is no place for women. 
There is no time to lose. She should be away from here.” 

And yet he was glad that Susy had come ; he had doubted her at 
one time, tried to do her cruel injustice, to put her away out of his 
thoughts with some hatred mixed with his feeling, some angry re- 
sentment for those very qualities for which he had loved her. Now 


230 


MRS. DYMOND. 


they met with an abyss between them, but he could not see her un- 
moved even at such a time as this, and as Max went on packing, or- 
dering, arranging, the thought of her was in all he did ; she looked 
worn and tired, the worst had not yet come. Max stopped to com 
sider what would be best for them all. His mother must go into 
safet}', and chance had favored him there. Susy must be sent back 
without delay, taking her mother with her. 

But Mrs. Marney would not hear of going away, she almost 
screamed when her daughter gently and tenderly suggested it, and 
repeated what Max had said. The mere hint of a move threw her 
into a state of such hysteric grief that Susy feared she might die 
then and there in her arms. “Go without seeing Mick, Susy! are 
you made of stone? Don’t you know that he is my husband, my 
love, my life? Go home yourself — and indeed your child must be 
wanting you — leave me, only leave me in peace to die. Madame 
must go, I know that well enough ; has she not said so a dozen times 
a day? I only ask to be left; my husband might come back and 
find me gone, I who never failed him yet.” It was all so piteous, 
so incoherent, so tragical , that neither Susy nor her old friend knew 
how to reason with it. 

Madame Du Parc was preparing to start at once; her “affairs” 
were weighing on her mind. “If I delay, there are those who are 
ill-disposed, who are hungering to lay their ’ands on our propriety. 
I must have a ’ome for Max.” In despair, and scarcely knowing 
what to suggest, Mrs. Dymond determined to go and find Marney 
himself, if he could be found. He would be the best person to per- 
suade his wife. 

Madame Du Parc had been talking to Maxwell’s coachman. It 
happened by chance that the carriage Caron had engaged belonged 
to Versailles, and was returning that afternoon. Carriages were 
rare, and Susy, finding that she could hire this one, after a couple of 
hours’ rest for the horses, determined to set off on her quest without 
loss of time. Denise was left in charge of the sick woman; ma- 
dame, availing herself of the opportunity, proposed to aocompany 
Mrs. Dymond. 

“Max is at home,” she said; “your mother is used to him; he 
will go up if he is wanted, and that Adolphe is very handy, poor 
fellow 1” It was Adolphe who saw them off, and who told the coach- 
man where to drive when they reached St. Cloud. So they started 
along the desolate road. Madame’s grunts, groans, and exclamations 
seemed the most lively and cheerful sounds by the way. 

“Oh! oh! oh! Only look at the ruined houses! That is poor 
Mademoiselle Fayard’s apartment up there— right up there. ” 


ST. CLOUD AFTER TOE STORM. 


231 


Mademoiselle Fayard’s late apartment was now nothing but a sort 
of hanging grotto in the air, and consisted of three sides of a black- 
ened room, of which the floor was gone, tfie ceiling was gone, al- 
though, by some strange freak of chance and war, the gilt looking- 
glass still hung upon its nail in which Mademoiselle Fayard had 
been used to crimp her curls. All the rest of the tidy little home 
had crumbled and fallen away. 

“Ah! Susy — I must call you Susy still — how terrible it all is! 
Only just now I say to my son, ‘Let us go together, Max; come 
away to the South; bring your tools and your work, and let us live 
rational lives once more.’ But he will not. He say to me, ‘Go, 
mother; you go, I will follow when my work here is done.’ His 
work, what is it, I ask you? He have finished M. Caron’s book, and 
now when I go into the studio I see nothing on the walls. Why 
does he not come away? If only your dear mamma could travel with 
us, she, too, might enjoy the peace, the beautiful clime of Avignon. 
But she have you now; you are a better cure than an old patraque 
like me; you must take her to your home, and make her happy with 
you.” 

Susy looked away ; her eyes were heavy with tears, she felt that 
no nurse, no care could ever make her mother happy again. Ma- 
dame went on talking and exclaiming; when Susy could listen to 
her again, she found she had gone back to the war, to her terrors, to 
her joy when she found her house spared as if by miracle. They 
had floated the ambulance flag over the roof, and those abominable 
Prussians did not dare fire the villa. “And now they say there is 
still danger, and we must go. It is horrible!” 

So the voice monotonously droned on, and meanwhile they drove 
their way by a desolate road, a Pompeii of the nineteenth century, 
past deserted houses open to the winds, past fallen walls, between 
the blackened homes, all alike forsaken and abandoned. The pleas- 
ant country-seats, the schools, the shops were all empty and wrecked. 
Here and there they passed soldiers leading horses, and carts loaded 
with household goods slowly laboring along the way. Men and 
women came slowly dragging trucks piled with what few possessions 
they had saved from the storm. 

At last they reached St. Cloud itself, and once more madame ex- 
claimed in consternation. Overhead the sky shone blue and the 
clouds were floating gayly, but the village of St. Cloud looked like a 
pile of children’s bricks overthrown by a wayward hand, so complete 
* was the change and confusion. The stones were heaped in the 
streets, only the shells of the tall houses were standing still, with 
strips of paper fluttering from the ruined walls. Here and there 


Mrs. dymond. 


c* 

were relics and indications of the daily life of the inhabitants. In 
one place a bird-cage was found hanging unharmed among the 
ruins. At the corner of the principal street (how well Susy remem- 
bered standing there little more than a year before with Max, when 
the imperial carriages rolled by and all seemed so prosperous!) a tall 
pile of ruined houses upreared their black walls. High up overhead 
a kitchen range with its saucepans was still fixed, and some toppling 
chairs were wedged into a chimney-stack. At the foot of the ruin 
three women in country cloaks were standing together looking up 
vacantly at the charred houses. They had but just returned to find 
their homes gone and utterly desolated. 

A few steps farther on Susy saw a child playing battledoor and 
shuttlecock in front of the blown-up houses. High up against the 
sky she could see the gutted chateau still standing on its terrace, 
while the sky showed pink through the walls. Some sight -seers 
were standing looking about. ‘ ‘ Papa, monte par id, si tu veux voir 
quelque chose de beau,” cries a boy, springing up on a heap of bricks 
and pointing to a falling street. Although the whole place was thus 
ravaged and destroyed, by some odd chance the spire of the church 
and its bells remained untouched. 

The cafe was also little harmed, and some people were sitting as 
usual drinking at the little tables in front of the windows. 

For once the presence of these indifferent philosophers was re-as- 
suring; one of them, who had already imbibed more drink than was 
necessary to prove his philosophy, began a song with a chorus in 
which two or three of his companions joined. 

“Listen to them,” said a workman going by; “they drink and 
sing while their country is in ruins.” And he flung some common 
word of disgust at them, and trudged on his way. 

Madame was looking at the address Adolphe had given her. 

“ This must be the very place — see, ‘ Cafe de l’Empire ’ is painted 
outside. Here, gargon ■/” and she beckoned to the waiter. 

The waiter professed to know nothing of M. Marney. He had 
never heard the name ; no Englishman was staying there. In vain 
madame harangued and scolded. 

Madame was not to be repulsed by a little difficulty. She slipped 
a five-franc piece into the waiter’s hand. 

“ Try and find out Monsieur Marney’s address within,” said she, 

“ and I will give you a second piece.” 

“His wife is very ill,” said Susy, bending forward; “he is sadly 
wanted at home. We have come to find him.” 

“ Can it be the capitaine you want?” said the waiter, suddenly re- 
lenting, as he looked at her entreating face; “a fine man, not tall, 


AT VERSAILLES. 


233 


a 


but well dressed and well set-up, curly hair, mustache en croc?" 
And as they assented, “I did not know his name; our patron sends 
all his letters to Versailles. Wait!” And the man ran back into 
the house. 

“Ah, you see, he knew very well,” says Madame Du Parc, with 
satisfaction, and in a minute the waiter returned with a paper, cTn 
which was written, in Marney’s writing, “ 15 Rue des Dominicains, 
Versailles.” 

“Ah! That is just what we wanted, and now the coachman 
must take us on quickly, ” said madame. “ Good-morning, young 
man.” 

The waiter refused the second five-franc piece that Susy would 
have given him as they drove away. 

“ One is enough,” said he. “ If the captain comes I will do your 
commission. ” And spreading his napkin wings he flew back again 
to his work. 


CHAPTER XXXII. 

AT VERSAILLES. 

“ Even kings and kesars biden fortune 1 s throws .” 

The carriage rolled on along by the banks of the river, by more 
ruin, by desolation in every form ; a few people were out, a few 
houses and shops were opening once more; the gardens bloomed 
with spring and lilac and laburnum, the skies were bright and the 
ruins black. 

The coachman stopped at a village to give his horse a drink. A 
great pile of crockery stood in the middle of the street; all about 
houses, wine-shops, wayside inns, alike abandoned ; a blacksmith’s 
forge empty and silent, a great seared barrack standing gaunt and 
deserted. It was one continuous line of desolation all along. Here 
and there a face looked out of some rifled home, and disappeared 
into the ruins. A cart went crawling by, piled with household 
goods. Out of one big broken house* with shutters flapping and 
windows smashed, issued a grand carriage, with a coachman and 
groom in full livery, and twinkling harness, and horses looking 
strangely smart and out of place. A little farther on was a china 
shop that seemed to have escaped by miracle; its broken panes were 
mended with paper. Then came children two by two. They reach- 
ed Versailles in less time than they expected. It was barely five 
o’clock, the sun was sinking in a warm and cheering stream of light. 


284 


MRS. DYMOND. 


As they drove into the city they heard the distant sound of a mili- 
tary band. Great changes were taking place, not the least being 
that the Germans were leaving. As they came up the street they 
met a company, spiked and girt, tramping out of the town. The 
soldiers marched past the old palace that had sheltered so many dy- 
nasties with stony impartiality, bearing in turns the signs of each 
invading generation. The noble gardens were flushed with blossom 
and growing summer, the shops were all open, the children were at 
play in the streets. On the walls were affixed papers in French and 
German, sales of horses, of camp furniture. Susy read of the ap- 
proaching departure of the — Company of the Hessian Division, 
with a notice requiring any claims to be immediately sent up, and a 
list of the articles to be disposed of by public sale ! As they waited 
to let the soldiers pass by, some more Germans came out of a stable 
across the road, carrying huge bundles of straw upon their backs 
and talking loudly to one another. How strange the echo of their 
voices sounded, echoed by the stately old walls of Versailles! 

The soldiers were gone; they were driving on again along the 
palace gardens, when madame leaned forward with a sudden excla- 
mation. “There is Marney!” she said. “I see him; he turn in 
there at the palace gate.” And the old lady, leaning forward, loud- 
ly called to the coachman to stop. “We will go after him, ’’she 
said to Susy; “ there is no time to lose.” 

Susy did not say a word. It had to be gone through, and she 
silently followed madame, w r ho was crossing the great court with 
heavy, rapid steps in pursuit of the figure she had recognized. They 
met with no opposition. The guardian of the galleries stared at 
them as they hurried by; the place was nearly empty; they saw a 
distant figure rapidly retreating, and madame hurried on in pursuit 
from one echoing floor to another, past the huge pictures of Napo- 
leon and his victories, past a great gilt frame boarded carefully from 
view. One or two people were passing and repassing along the 
gallery, but Marney (if Marney it was) vanished suddenly and was 
nowhere to be found. Madame severely questioned a guardian 
standing by a door-way. He had seen no one pass within the last 
few minutes, but there wefe many exits; there was one door leading 
to the great hall, which had been turned into an ambulance, and 
people were constantly going out by it. The officers were gone, he 
told them ; a few of the men still remained, and one young lieuten- 
ant, whose sister had come from Germany to nurse him. Susy had 
hardly patience to listen during madame’s various questions and ob- 
servations, to which the custodian, being a cautious man, returned 
guarded answers. “That was a portrait of the Queen of Prussia, 


AT VERSAILLES. 


235 




boarded over by command ; now that the Prussians were going it 
was to be unboarded, by order.” “ Yes, he had been there all the 
time. He had faithfully served the emperor. He was prepared as 
faithfully to do his duty by any one who came.” A Coriolanus 
could not have uttered sentiments more noble and patriotic. At 
last, finding it was hopeless to inquire further, they got into the 
carriage once more and drove to the address in the Rue des Dom- 
inicians. 

“No. 15! This must be No. 15,” says madame, stopping before a 
low white house, with a high roof and a door opening to the street. 
She knocked with two loud, decided raps, raising the heavy scroll- 
ed knocker. In a little while the heavy door was opened by a 
stupid-looking girl in a white cap, who seemed utterly bewildered 
by her questions. 

“ Yes,” she said, “Mr. Marney lived there. He was not at home, 
he was gone to St. Cloud. ” 

“When will he be in?” says madame, in her loud voice. “I will 
wait for him. I am Madame Marney ’s friend.” 

The girl looked more and more stupid. * ‘ Madame is here ; I will 
call her,” she said, and she went into a ground-floor room. 

Almost immediately a woman with strange glittering eyes and 
yellow, tawny hair, and some sort of a pink dressing-gown, flung 
open a door upon the passage. “You are asking for Madame Mar- 
ney?” she said, with a defiant air. “What do you want?” 

“ I come from Madame Marney,” said the old lady, looking very 
terrible. “ She is ill, seriously ill. She wishes to see her husband 
at once, and I must insist — ” 

But before the old lady could finish her sentence the woman 
screamed out to the girl, “ What are you doing, Marie? Turn out 
these German spies;” and with a look of furious hatred she sprang 
forward, violently thrusting poor old madame backwards out of 
the door-way and banging the heavy door in her face. Susy, who 
had not come in, had just time to catch Madame Du Parc or she 
would have fallen. It was a horrible scene, a hideous, degrading 
experience. 

The old lady was a minute recovering her breath; then the two 
looked at each other in silence as they stood together outside the 
closed house. 

“Oh, what abomination!” said madame, shuddering and putting 
up her hands. “Oh, my poor, poor fren’! — oh, Susy, my poor 
Susy, I have long feared how it might be ; I have now the cer- 
tainty. ” 

Susanna, who had turned pale, rallied with a great effort. She 


236 


MRS. DYMOND. 


would not acknowledge, even to herself, much less to madame, 
what a miserable revelation had come to her in that brief moment. 
“That woman had been drinking,” she said, very coldly; “she 
seemed half mad. Dear madame, we will go no farther. Mr. Mar- 
ney is sure to receive my mother’s message from one person or 
another, and perhaps, to make sure, you will kindly write to both 
his addresses when you get back. Let us go home now, mamma 
will be waiting.” And then, telling the man to drive them to the 
station, they drove away slowly in the rattling carriage, with the 
tired horses, scarcely speaking another word. 

The wreck of her sweet mother’s generous love and life’s devo- 
tion seemed to Susy sadder and more terrible than any crash of 
war, any destruction and ravage. What were broken stones, what 
were overturned walls and fortunes, so long as people could love 
and trust each other? Once more that idea came into her mind, 
which she would never let herself dwell upon, a thought of what 
two lives might be, even tried, even parted, but with trust and love 
and holy confidence to bind them together. 

They were too soon for the train, and had to wait some few min- 
utes at the station; as they stood there in the sunset two deputies 
were walking up and down the platform talking gloomily. 

“So! the young men of Metz and Strasbourg are to wear the 
Prussian helmet,” said one of them as they passed; “it is of a 
piece with all the rest.” 

“I don’t know what there is left for us now,” said the other, 
speaking with emotion. “Where is our safety? Paris is at the 
mercy of the first comer. I have seen as many as two hundred 
young men in a week passing in a file through my village to avoid 
conscription. ” And the voices passed on. 

The train arrived at last, puffing along the line, and Susy and 
madame got into the first vacant carriage. There they found a 
trio — a father, a mother in a smart bonnet, a son, a pink-faced youth 
holding a huge cane and tassel. All these, too, were talking eagerly; 
they paid no attention whatever to the entrance of the two women. 

Father. “Yes, yes, yes! talk to me of change! What does 
change mean? A revolution. Quick, add two millions or three 
millions to the national debt. Do you know what the debt was 
thirty years ago when the minister of finance proposed to pay it off? 
Now it is just four times the sum! Give us another revolution and 
we double it again. Liberty! Oh yes! Liberty or every man for 
himself. As for me, I vote for the man in power because I love my 
country, and I wish for order above all ; I voted for the emperor 
and now I shall vote for a republic, and believe me the only way 


AT VERSAILLES. 


237 


to preserve a republic is to take it out of the hands of the republi- 
cans.” 

Son {angrily). “But, father, our armies were gaining, if only we 
republicans had been allowed to have our way.” 

Father {sarcastically). “ Yes, everybody gained everywhere, and 
meanwhile the Prussians advanced.” 

Mother {shrilly echoing the father). 1 1 Pyat ! Flourens ! these are 
your republicans, Auguste. They are mud ; do you hear? — mud, 
mud, mud.” 

Enter an old lady, handed carefully by the guard. “Ah, sir! 
many thanks! Madame, I thank you. I am a poor emigree return- 
ing after six months’ absence. Alas ! I had hoped to be spared the 
sight of a Prussian, but that was not to be. ” 

Mother {proudly). “ We, madame, remained. When one has a 
son fighting for his country, one cannot leave one’s home.” (Son 
looks conscious, and twirls his cane.) 

Old Lady. ‘ ‘ Alas ! you have more courage than I have. For 
my part I am grateful from my heart to Trochu for his surrender, 
for sparing useless slaughter.” 

Father. “What could he do alone? he was driven on by your 
so-called patriots. This is the result of your free press.” 

Son. ‘ ‘ But, papa, give us progress ; you would not refuse us 
progress.” 

Mother {vehemently echoing the son). “Yes, progress, and liberty 
of discussion. . . .” 

Father ( desperately ). “I give you progress, but I do not give 
you leave to talk about it. Progress comes best alone. When peo- 
ple begin to talk nonsense, and pass votes in favor of progress, 
they show they are not ready for it. ...” 

Sad and preoccupied as Susy was, she could not but listen to the 
voices on every side ; they interested her though they were any- 
thing but cheering. When she and Madame Du Parc reached the 
villa, tired and dispirited, a figure was standing at the gate, and evi- 
dently looking out for them. It was Jo, only a little more dishev- 
elled than usual, and bringing with him a feeling of home and real 
comfort of which poor Susy was sadly in need at that moment. 

It was the simplest thing in the world. He had started off then 
and there, hearing that Susanna was gone to her mother ; he had 
come to see if he could help to bring Mrs. Marney back ; he had 
left his bag in the train. . . . While Susy walked on with her arm 
in his, listening to his explanations, Madame Du Parc poured out 
her pent-up indignation to Max, who also came out to receive them. 
He had been at home all day finishing a couple of sketches ordered 


238 


MRS. DYMOND. 


by M. Hase for his pictorial newspaper ; he had been up once or 
twice to see Mrs. Marney, whom he thought very ill. 

“You must tell her nothing, except that you failed to find Mar- 
ney, ” he said, compassionately; “but, for God’s sake, mamma, leave 
this place, and try and get your friends to go. The sooner the bet- 
ter for us all. The Federals are sure to come down upon Neuilly 
another day, and it may be too late. I must go back to my work 
now, for 1 have no time to lose. ” 


CHAPTER XXXIII. 

RED COMES INTO FASHION. 

“ With your hands and your feet and your raiment all red .” 

Macaulay. 

Du Parc was still at his work late that evening when he heard 
a knock at the door, and he cried, “ Come in,” without looking up. 

He was bending over his plate, with th'e gas jet flaring above his 
head ; his black curly hair was in the light, his brown face in shad- 
ow. He had taken off his worn uniform and was dressed in an old 
velvet coat, shabby enough for any communist. His dog was lying 
at his feet. 

“What is it?” he said, looking up half blinded. “Is it you, 
mother?” 

“It is I, Susanna Dymond,” said Susy, standing in the door- way 
and hesitating to come in; “I want you to help me, M. Max. I 
am in great perplexity, and I want you to advise me,” and as 
she spoke she came forward into the light. ‘ ‘ I have been expect- 
ing Mr. Marney, but he has not come yet,” continued Susy, with a 
faltering voice. ‘ ‘ I fear it will kill mamma outright to be moved 
to England, I think it would be best to take her somewhere into 
Paris where she can be safer than here ; and meanwhile your mother 
must not be delayed by us.” 

“My mother had better go,” said Maxwell, after a moment’s 
thought; “ I will see to that. I would not urge Mrs. Marney ’s de- 
parture, but if the Federals make a stand at Neuilly, this place may 
be in flames at any moment. You know I am in their councils,” 
he said, with a shrug. “You see I am working all night to finish 
up my plates. I have already tried to talk to Madame Marney,” he 
continued, putting down his point and rising from his seat. “ You 
must act for her, pack everything in readiness, and I will make ar- 
rangements and have a carriage here to-morrow. I know of a house 


RED COMES INTO FASIIION, 


239 


in Paris where she will be safe for the present. And we must get 
hold of Marney, ” he added. 

** Thank you,” said Susy. It seemed to ease her heart to say the 
words which are so meaningless, but which sometimes mean so much 
— almost everything, at some moments. 

Susy lingered still. She had said what she meant to say, but 
there was something more she longed to say, as she stood with her 
true eyes fixed upon Max, while the words failed her. 

“Why do you look at me like that, madame?” he asked, smiling 
gravely, and yet not without some feeling, perhaps, of what was in 
her mind. 

“Ah, Max!” she answered, in a low voice, “ I am trying to find 
courage to ask you to come away. You tell us to go and we are 
going; why do you yourself remain? What can you do? These 
communists are no fit associates for you. I have here learned 
enough in the last few days to know something of the truth. What 
part can an honest man take in this terrible confusion except that of 
his own simplest duty? Oh, leave these mad people! Your mother 
is your first duty now. For her sake, for my sake, if my wishes 
still touch you, come away.” 

“ Your wishes must always touch me,” he said, simply and grave- 
ly; “but you do not understand: my mother can get on without 
me. I mean I am not necessary to her,” he said, looking steadily 
at Susy as he spoke ; ‘ ‘ but my poor mother-country wants me. It 
is true I am only one man in a stupid crowd ; but if I go with that 
crowd I may hope, perhaps, to lead it in some measure, or to help at 
least to lead it. For I ask you, madame,” and his eyes began to 
flash as he went on, “if all the honest men continue to desert their 
posts, to take their tickets by every train, as they have done for the 
last few days, leaving Paris at the mercy of the undisciplined mob, 
who will be to blame for whatever desperate encounter may arise? 
I shoWd like you , at least, to think of me as an honest man, and not 
as a coward, even though I tell you I am afraid to go, afraid to aban- 
don a party where I imagine my presence may be of use, for another 
faction whose acts and deeds I reprobate with all my heart. Caron 
has elected to stay, and my convictions will not let me abandon him, 
alone, to face the storm w T hich is ready to break. Our place is here 
at our posts, even if we cannot keep back the horrible burstings of 
the flood-gates, the hopeless reprisals, which must follow.” He had 
almost forgotten Susy’s presence ; he was growing more excited 
every moment, while she turned paler and paler, and at last sank 
down trembling on one of the overturned cases. 

4 ‘ I have frightened you, ” he said, stopping short, melting. “ Ah , 

16 


240 


MRS. DYMOND. 


forgive me. There is nothing for people to fear who are doing their 
duty as best they can. You are in the same danger as I am. You 
are not afraid for yourself,” and as he spoke he took her cold hand 
in his. She could not answer; her reluctant sympathy, her utter 
good-will, her generous love were his; but never, never again should 
she speak of her feeling to him. She could only faintly press his 
hand; and then she got up from the w r ooden case, and walking slow- 
ly across the room opened the door upon the garden, dim with the 
night and starlit; then she stopped — “Ah! what is that?” said she, 
starting. The muffled sound of a distant gun came bursting through 
the darkness with a dull vibration. It was followed by a second and 
a third. 

“It is the cannon from the batteries of Chaumont, ” said Max, 
following her to the door and looking out ; ‘ ‘ the fight has begun. ” 
As he spoke two or three figures came up crossing the dark garden. 
“Good-night, madame, be without fear; all will arrange itself,” said 
Max, speaking very loud and distinct. He pushed Susy away with 
a gentle violence as he spoke, so anxious did he seem that she should 
go at once. 

She went back agitated but calmed by her talk. It was not what 
he had said which comforted her, but his voice, his bright, dominant 
looks breaking through the occasional glooms and moods she knew 
so well, the sense of capability and restrained power he threw into 
the most trivial details, all seemed to her full of help and life. He 
was no visionary, no utterer of professions ; of such men she had an 
instinctive horror. But he had told her his meaning, his aims, his 
thoughts, about which he was generally silent, and his looks spoke 
the truth from his honest heart. 

“We are all suspect, we upper classes,” says Mademoiselle Fayard 
next morning, as she sat there in her skimp gown and limp gloves, 
clasping her old split parasol; the victim of the German Empire. 
She had come up to take leave of Madame Du Parc, to talk over 
the horrible news of the outbreak, of the dreadful report of the mur- 
der of the generals. “ So Susy and her mother were also going? 
Had they secured their passports? It was as well to have passports 
in such times,” said Mademoiselle Fayard. 

“Mr. Jo must go and ask for them,” says madame, pouring out 
the coffee, and shaking her head continually. 

But where was Jo? No one had seen him since the early morn- 
ing. He had been up betimes and had started for the station to look 
for his bag, so Denise reported. 

“I would offer to go for your passeport, madame,” said Mademoi- 


RED COMES INTO FASHION. 


241 


selle Fayard, “but they will see at a glance that I am not a British 
subject.” 

“lama British subject,” cries madame, with dignity, “ I will ac- 
company Susy.” 

“Your complexion alone, madame, is enough to convince them 
of your nationality,” says mademoiselle, politely. Max came in 
while they were all discussing their complexions over their break- 
fast ; he looked fagged and anxious, and seemed more and more 
preoccupied; he also came in to ask for the missing Jo. 

“Ah! those yong men!” cries Madame Du Parc, “they are al- 
ways onpunctual; he leave me and his mamma to get the passeparts. 
Why do you not come with us, Max? I am going on to see Caron 
afterwards.” 

Max looked doubtful. “ He could only accompany them as far a3 
the Barri&re,” he said, “if they would start at once;” and they ac- 
cordingly set out walking along the broad avenue that leads to tho 
Arc. Madame Du Parc and Mademoiselle Fayard were ahead. 
Once more Susy found herself walking beside her friend, but ho 
seemed busy, hurried, scarcely conscious of her presence. A double 
supply of soldiers were mounting guard at the gates of Paris, and 
an officer, followed by an orderly, come forward to interrogate them. 
To this officer madame immediately addressed herself with dignity. 

“We come to demand passes, monsieur,” said madame; “I am 
the proprietress of the Villa du Parc, where I have dwelt respected 
for nearly thirty years, and now that I am driven from my home 
by those who — ” 

But here her son hastily interposed, fearing lest one of his moth- 
er’s outbursts of eloquence might bring them all into difficulty. 
“This officer is busy, mamma,” he said, interrupting and laughing 
at the same time; “he has not time to listen to all your reasons for 
leaving home. Madame is residing in Paris,” Max goes on, point- 
ing to Mademoiselle Fayard, “ and is returning to her domicile, and 
madame,” says he, pointing to Susy, “is English; she is going to 
the English Embassy to demand a passeport for herself and her moth- 
er, who is ill. I will answer for these ladies. You know me, my 
lieutenant.” 

“ Pass, mesdames,”says the officer, politely saluting, and he turns 
away and goes into his little wooden hut. 

As he was turning away, Maxwell came close to his mother, and 
said, in a low voice, not laughing any more, 

“Mother, I conjure you to remember that if you say things to 
people in the street you will not only bring trouble upon yourself, 
but endanger every one of us. Be silent, I beseech you.” 


242 


MRS. DYMOND. 


“This is a pretty country indeed,” says madame, with a grunt, 

‘ ‘ where sons can impose silence on the mothers who brought them 
into the world. So much for your liberty.” 

“Come along, dear madame,” said Susy, slipping her arm into 
the old lady’s. 

Max looked after them for an instant as the three walked away, 
the sturdy old mother still protesting, the limp, one-sided member of 
the upper classes fluttering vaguely after her, and Susy, straight, 
majestic, walking sterdily on, with her long, black folds flowing 
round her upright figure. They turned a corner and were gone. 

The streets of Paris seemed strangely changed to Susanna from 
that chill morning only a few days ago when she first arrived. The 
city seemed suddenly awakened to an angry mood, noisy, excited. 
The sad women in their mourning were still coming and going about 
the streets, but there were also others whom she had not seen before 
— strange-looking figures, like old-fashioned pictures of Jerome or 
Horace Vernet. 

“How the red has come into fashion; how much it is worn,” said 
Mademoiselle Fayard, stopping, breathless, to look about. Indeed 
it was remarkable that so many people should have suddenly changed 
their looks and their mourning clothes. 

Men, and women, too, wore bands of crimson round their waists 
and across their shoulders; one or two people passed in red pointed 
caps of liberty, and presently coming up the street appeared a figure 
like one of Gilray’s caricatures. A huge man, with a long, tufted 
beard, with an enormous necktie tied in a huge bow, swaggering 
along as if all Paris belonged to him, with wide coat-flaps, a tricolor 
rosette in his peaked hat. Into his sash he had stuck two pistols 
and a dirk, in his hand he carried a cane with a long tassel. As he 
advanced, puffing and strutting up the road, Susy pressed madame’s 
arm, in terror lest she should address herself to this imposing appa- 
rition. 

“ Oh, the abominable monkey,” mutters the old lady, between her 
teeth. 

The man scowled at her as she passed, but, fortunately, did not 
hOed what she said. 

They parted from poor mademoiselle at a street corner; she had 
various commissions of her own on her mind, and Susy and her 
companion went on to the embassy in the Rue St. Ilonore. A 
friendly Union Jack was hanging over the British lion upon the 
gate. The tall English porter, with his brooms and pails, was wash- 
ing out the court-yard. There was a peaceful and re assuring as- 
pect about the place which restored their somewhat troubled spirits. 


RED COMES INTO FASniON. 


243 


The porter pointed up a narrow staircase leading to the “bureau,” 
in a side lodge. 

“The clerk would be back immediately,” he said, and he left 
them in a little inner room with a stove and a pen and a half dried- 
up inkstand. 

It was an entresol ; the low window opened to the yard, so that 
they could see nothing of the streets outside. 

When the clerk came in at last, the two ladies immediately told 
him their business. He said he must consult a superior. Mrs. Dy- 
mond, of course, could have a passport for herself. He thought there 
would be no difficulty about her mother. As for Madame Du Parc, 
he did not know how far she was still entitled to be considered a 
British subject. He would inquire. 

•“ Is M. Bagginal still here?” Susy asked. “ He knows my name.” 

“ M. Bagginal is away on leave for a few days; he left immediate- 
ly after the siege. We expect him back daily.” 

Then the young man signed to them to come into the second room, 
of which the windows looked upon the street. 

How quickly events arise when the time is ripe for them! 

In those few minutes while they waited in the back room the 
whole pjace had beep transformed; the dull street was now crowd- 
ed and alive with people, every casement was open and full of 
heads, women peeped from the garret windows, men crowded to the 
shop doors. Where was the gloom of yesterday, the mourning sad- 
ness of a conquered nation? 

Mr. Bagginal’s representative entered the room at this minute with 
Susanna’s card in his hand. He was another young man of the Bag- 
ginal type, well-dressed, well-bred. He knew Mrs. Dymond’s name, 
he said, while madame, as usual, began her statement; she gave a 
retrospect of her past life, her marriage, her early difficulties; she 
was proceeding to give her views upon the politics of the day when 
a sudden cry from the street distracted the polite attache. 

Madame exclaimed, and left off in the midst of her harangue and 
ran to the window, and Susy turned pale as she followed her. 

Up the centre of the street came a mad-looking, dancing proces- 
sion. A great red flag was borne ahead by a man in a blouse and a 
scarlet Phrygian cap. Then followed a wild, bacchanalian crew, 
headed by a dishevelled woman also crowned with the cap of liberty 
and dressed entirely in red from head to foot, followed by some oth- 
ers dancing, clapping their hands, and beating time to a drum and a 
tambourine; half a dozen men, with pistols in their belts, with huge 
boots, and a scarlet figure, carrying a second flag, wound up the pro- 


244 


MRS. DTMOND. 


cession. The whole band swept on like some grim vision; it was 
there, it was gone, the window closed up, the street was empty again. 
The sight seemed so ominous of past terror, of new disaster, that even 
madame was silent for once. 

“ Oh, come, my child,” she said to Susy, who was now standing 
with her passeporis in her hand. “We have much to do; we must 
not delay. This city is no place for quiet people.” 


CHAPTER XXXIY. 

ONE OLD FRIEND TO ANOTHER. 

“ A comfort of retirement lives in this .” 

Second Part of Henry VI. 

Madame had very much at heart her desire to say good-bye to 
Monsieur Caron. “He and I are old people, we may not meet 
again in this world,” she said. “ He has filled my son’s head with 
many mad ideas, but he has shown himself a good, true friend. Are 
you afraid to come, Susy?” 

She looked pleased when Susy "said she should be glad to go with 
her, she was not afraid. « 

Monsieur Caron lived some way off in the Rue du Bac, and Mrs. 
Dymond, seeing a chance carriage in the road, signed to it, and got 
in with her friend. As they rolled along, the} r passed the head of a 
second procession coming up some side street, and preceded by a 
blue flag carried by a man like a beadle. 

This procession, unlike the other, was not on tiptoe; it came 
steadily and quietly along, and consisted almost entirely of well- 
dressed and respectable-looking people, civilians, National Guards, 
and others, Walking five or six abreast, with folded arms and spri- 
ous faces, talking as they went. 

“ That is a deputation going to parley with the Federals,” shout- 
ed the coachman, turning round upon his seat. ‘ ‘ Everybody has a 
procession; you will see the Federals with their barricade in the 
Place Vendome; these gentlemen are going to mediate; that is why 
they are not armed.” 

The carriage jogged on, and presently they passed two stacks of 
guns, piled at the entrance of the Place Vendome, where the col- 
umn still rose supreme above the heads of the encamped Federals. 

“Do you see the cannons?” said the coachman, a little old man 
who seemed of a military turn of mind. “Oh, they are strong, 
ceux-ld /” 


ONE OLD FRIEND TO ANOTHER. 


245 


“It is all nonsense,” cries madame, very angrily, “all childish 
nonsense. ” 

One of the sentries looked up at her as she spoke. 

It was a glorious spring morning, and the sweetness and the sun- 
shine seemed to be on the side of peace and happier promise. The 
stacked guns gleamed, the mediators and the soldiers alike seemed 
enjoying the beauty of the morning. 

A few minutes afterwards they were crossing the Pont Neuf, from 
whence they could see all Paris and its glories shining along the 
river banks, and soon they reached Monsieur Caron’s house on the 
far side of the Seine, where he lived in a high-perched lodging. 

The coachman would not wait for them; they paid him and let 
him go, and walked into the stone-paved court, where a porter, as 
usual, was collecting the broken fragments scattered by the Prussian 
bomb-shells. The house in which Caron lived was well-known to 
the world. Many messengers of good and evil tidings had passed up 
its old stone flights. Chateaubriand had once lived there, faithful 
to his poor, blind, beautiful friend of earlier days. Madame Reca- 
mier had lived there, and her friend and disciple. Wise men had 
climbed those flights, and mighty men belonging to the world of 
action; there had come the Amperes and Mathieu de Montmorency 
— that loyal gentleman — all the shifting splendors of those early 
days, and ministers and kings and queens deposed, and courtiers -in 
the ascendant ; the place still seems haunted by those familiar ghosts 
of the first half of the century. 

Madame, who knew the way, panted up, followed by Mrs. Dy- 
mond. They rang the bell of a door, which was presently opened 
by an old woman-servant in a country dress, who nodded recogni- 
tion, and showed them through the dining-room to Caron’s study. 

How peaceful it all seemed, after the tumult of the streets full of 
the signs of war, of party strife, and confusion. The old man sat 
reading the paper in his dressing-gown and velvet toque. He sat 
with his back to the warm flood of light that came from the open 
window. He rose to meet them, looking surprised but pleased at 
their visit; his bright blue eyes shone like a young man’s beneath 
his gray hair. “How good of you, mesdames, to take the trouble,” 
said he, courteously, in his pretty slow English, “and to find me 
out in my nest. It is a long way up, as I fear you have discovered. 
Will you have some refreshment— coffee or sirup? Madeline will 
be proud to serve you.” 

“ Oh no, nothing of the sort,” says madame, putting up her hand. 
“We come to take leave, Monsieur Caron. I did not wish to go 
without seeing you once more. You and I are too old friends to 


246 


MRS. DYMOND. 


part without a good handshake, although our opinions differ, and 
you know that I shall always detest yours.” 

Caron smiled. “And so you are driven out?” he said. “It is 
hard on you, my poor lady. It would take a great deal fo tear me 
from my quiet corner here. You see the Prussians have had some 
grace ; they sent an enormous cannon-ball into our court-yard, but it 
has done no great harm. Those are Chateaubriand’s trees,” he said 
to Susy, who was looking about with some interest and surprise. 
“ He used to walk there in that avenue, and compose his sentiment- 
al poetry, his impossible idyls. Will you like to come out on the 
balcony?” and as he spoke he stepped out into the sunshine. A 
sweet, peaceful sight met their eyes; the old gardens were shining 
green among walls and gables and peeps of distant places far away. 
As Susy leaned over the rails the twitter of the birds was in the air, 
and with it all the sweet spring fragrance of the hour. “That is the 
priests’ garden next door,” Caron said, pointing to a beautiful old 
garden, with lilacs beyond a wall. “They have just come back 
with their seminarists; there is one of them reading his breviary. 
He is dreaming away his time, poor fellow! I fear he does not 
know what an awakening is before him.” 

Alas! the old man spoke prophetically, not knowing what he 
said. Only a few weeks more and the silent young priest was hero- 
ically giving up his life for his breviary. 

“ One can hardly realize that this is also Paris,” said Susy, “ as one 
comes in straight from the streets, and from hearing the clamor and 
cries of those horrible people. ” 

“Ah! my dear young lady, do not call them horrible people,” said 
the old man, with a sigh. “They want good things, which pleas- 
ant and well-mannered people withhold from them and their chil- 
dren. They are only asking for justice, for happiness. They ask 
rudely, in loud voices, because when they ask politely they are not 
listened to.” 

“Excuse me, Monsieur Caron,” cries madame, stoutly, “I cannot 
help contradic. They imposes on you; they asks, they takes, they 
gets rations, they runs away, but they will not work, they cannot 
learn, they will not fight; you will never teach them anything ex- 
cept to drink and shout. . . . But I forgot; I did not come to argue, 
I came to shake your hand, ” said the old lady, with a touch of real 
feeling. “I go to-morrow, Max will follow as soon as he has de- 
spatched his work. He will come after me if you do not detain him. 
Caron, my old friend, I am here to ask this of you — do not keep 
him from me, do not lead him into dangers.” Two tears stood in 
her little gray eyes, winking with emotion. “ Would that you, too, 


ONE OLD FRIEND TO ANOTHER. 


247 


were coming into safety,” slie said; “that you were coming with 
me— or even with Susanna — she go back to England, and there you 
would be safe.” 

“Will you come?” Susanna cried, blushing up eagerly, “dear 
Monsieur Caron, Jo and I would, oh so gladly! bring you home 
with us. Indeed our house is always open to you — any time, any 
day.” 

The old man looked touched and pleased by her eagerness. “I 
thank you warmly,” he said, “but my work is here. Dear lady, 
what would you think of me if I abandoned it — my ateliers , my 
employes, my half-finished schemes?” Then he turned to Madame 
Du Parc, and took her old brown hand in his with the same gentle, 
courtly respect that he might have shown to a princess, to a beauti- 
ful lady. “You must trust me as you have always done hitherto,” 
he said. “Max shall run no danger if I can help it — none that I do 
not share myself,” and as he spoke a bright and almost paternal 
look w~as in his face. “Only you must remember,” he added, grave- 
ly, “there are some chances which an honest man must face in times 
like these, and Max is an honest man.” 

His words struck Susy; they reminded her of her own talk with 
Du Parc. 

Madame turned red, snorted, jerked, tried to speak, failed, choked. 
“Where is Madeline?” she said at last. “I will ask Madeline for 
some sugar-and-water,” and she left the room very quickly. 

Caron shook his head gently as he looked after her; then he turned 
his blue eyes on Susanna, who stood silent with her pale face. Still 
without speaking Caron went to a table, opened a drawer, and came 
slowly back to her, holding a packet in his hand. 

“ I have something to ask of you,” he said. “ It has just occurred 
to me that I have some papers here which I should be glad to know 
of in a place of safety. Will you take them back to England with 
you? and if anything should happen to me send for Max, and ho 
will know what to do with them. They are papers relating to my 
works,” he added, “and some private memoranda for my friend 
Max. I left another parcel in my old lodging in the Brompton Road 
with Mrs. Barry,” he added, smiling. “It is only an unfinished ar- 
ticle about my society, but Max may like to finish it some day.” 

Susy knew that for some time past Caron had been trying to ap- 
ply his socialism to his paper-mills, and that he had turned the whole 
concern into a company, of which the shareholders were the work- 
men themselves. It was a society conducted on the same plan as 
that of Leclair, which had proved so successful. The workmen 
gave zeal, care, thrift as their share of the capital; Caron adminis- 


248 


MRS. DYMOND. 


tered the whole, and reinvested the profits in graduated shares at the 
•end of the year. 

“ You have heard of my factories,” he continued, as quietly as was 
h,is wont, to Susy. “Do you know the story of the slave who fell 
with the bowl of grain, and of the swallows who flew to fetch each 
■other to share and share alike? My work-people are my swallows, 
and if anything were to happen to me, Max must he able to supply 
them with grain. Do not look distressed, my dear lady,” said the 
old man, shrugging his shoulders, “death must come to us all. I 
‘care not by what name it comes, but I want to know that my chil- 
dren are provided for. I know that I can trust you, and for the 
present will you keep my little confidence?” 

“You know you can trust me,” Susy said, with a sigh, and as she 
spoke madame came back with hurried steps and with red eyes. 
“Well, then, good-bye, Monsieur Caron. Madeline gave me all I 
wanted,” cried the old' lady. “ Come, Susy, come.” 

Caron followed them in silence to the door. “ Good-bye, good- 
bye; take care of yourself, Monsieur Caron,” madame kept repeat- 
ing, as she stumped down-stairs. 


CHAPTER XXXV. 

PAST THE CHURCH OF ST. ROCH. 

“ Higgledy-piggledy packed toe lie , 

Rats in a hamper, swines in a sty , 

Wasps in a bottle, frogs in a sieve .” — It. Browning. 

t 

They came away into the street again, and walked in silence for 
a time. Madame went ahead, incoherently grunting and grumbling 
to herself, quieting down by degrees, and finding some comfort in 
checking off her many plans upon her fingers. “Luncheon, nec- 
essaries for the journey, a carriage to be commanded, then the om- 
nibus, and so home.” They crossed the bridge and went into the 
Tuileries gardens. The first thing that struck them was that the 
sentries had been changed since they passed before. Two hideous lit- 
tle men with straw in their boots w T ere keeping guard, and as they 
crossed each other in their zigzagging lines they occasionally stopped 
and whispered together. A dirty-looking officer with a calico sash 
tied round his waist eame strutting up, and rebuked the sentries in 
a loud, familiar voice. Many people were about, staring at the 
strange looking soldiers established in the customary places. Most 
of the shops seemed to have put up their shutters again. Madame’s 


fast the church of st. roch. 


249 


purchases preoccupied her, and she crossed the street to one of the 
few shops which still remained open. Just as she came up to the 
counter, the shopwoman suddenly put down the handful of things 
she was folding away and looked at the door. There was a crowd 
of voices outside, a murmur rather than a cry; one or two people 
came rushing by the swinging glass door; a man burst in, whispered 
something across the counter, and the woman, with a pale, scared 
face, turned to madame. 

“They are shooting down the people in the Place Vendome,” she 
said, quietly; “ we must put up our shutters. Will you remain?” 

“ Oh, no, no! Let us go home to mamma,” cried Susy, running 
to the door with a first terrified impulse of flight, and in an instant 
she and madame found themselves in a tide of human beings flow- 
ing along the street. A minute brought them to the turning up the 
Rue St. Roch, that narrow defile where, near a century before, the 
young Napoleon, Dictator, had ordered his troops to fire on the mob; 
along which the young communicants had crowded that day last 
year. Susy thought of it, even at that moment, flying with the fly- 
ing stream — children, women in their mourning dresses, couples 
arm-in-arm. An omnibus, turning out of its way in the Rue de Ri- 
voli, began madly galloping up the steep ascent, along which every 
door, every shop, seemed closed already, whereas the great church 
gates flew open wide, and something like a black wave of people 
came sweeping down the great flight of steps into the street below, 
flowing and mingling with the crowd. One or two people were 
standing outside their doors, watching this flight. 

“Let us get out of the crowd,” said madame, coolly, as she hur- 
ried along. “ Once across out of the Rue St. Honore we shall be 
safe enough. ” 

Susanna in those few moments of time seemed to see more of life 
than in as many years of an ordinary existence. The people run- 
ning, the groups rallying, the terrified women dragging their chil- 
dren into shelter. She saw a group of hateful young dandies lean- 
ing over a balcony with opera-glasses in their gloved hands, and 
laughing at the diverting sight of fellow-citizens flying for their 
lives. She saw a man in plain clothes suddenly attack a little man 
in a National Guard’s uniform, clutch at him by the collar, with an 
oath: “Ah, you hide away in your shops and corners, and this is 
why we are abandoned to these wretches!” cries the assailant. 
Then a few steps farther on a door burst open, a middle-aged man 
dressed in the uniform of the National Guard and evidently prepared 
for action sallies forth, to be as suddenly dragged back by one of 
those huge and powerful megeres for which Paris is famous. “ Do 


250 


MRS. DYMOND. 


you think that I shall let you go?” she shrieks, as she hurls her hus- 
band hack, and the door bangs upon the struggling pair. As they 
were crossing the Rue St. Honore madame said “ Ah!” in a peculiar 
voice, and a- couple of bullets whistle by. The insurgents were still 
firing from their barricade at the unarmed masses, at the formidable 
children, the dangerous nurse-maids and servant-girls. Once across 
the Rue St. Honore, as madame said, they were in comparative safe- 
ty? but one more alarm was reserved for them. In the street lead- 
ing to the Boulevard they suddenly found themselves surrounded by 
soldiers. In a moment they saw that these were not insurgents, but 
National Guards belonging to the party of order, with broad blue 
sashes round their waists. One of them, a big, fair young man, 
stopped short, and stamped his foot in furious, helpless rage and in- 
dignation as he looked up at the lounging young men in the balcony 
overhead. “The country in ruin, and not one of you cowards to 
answer her call!” he cried, shaking his fist at them with impotent 
fury. An older officer said something, pointed somewhere, and the 
little band hurried on, glittering, clanking, helpless against the great 
catastrophe. 

On the boulevards everything was quiet and silent. The place 
seemed almost deserted; a few people were resting on the benches, 
the sun shone, the surly women were selling their newspapers in the 
little kiosks, upon which the various placards and appeals of the day 
were fluttering. Susy saw one despairing cry from a friend of or- 
der, headed — 

“Liberty, Fraternity, Equality.” 

“I appeal to the manhood, to the patriotism of the population, to 
those desiring tranquillity and respect for law. Time presses; a 
barrier is absolutely needed to stem the tide of revolution; let all 
good citizens give me their support. 

‘ ‘ (Signed) A. Bonne, 

“ Captain Comm., 1st Company, 253 Batt.” 

Along side with this, and indefinitely multiplied, were the Federal 
manifestoes in their official type and paper — 

“Citizens! the day of the 18th of March will be known to poster- 
ity as the day of the justice of the people! The government has 
fallen, the entire army, rejecting the crime of fratricide, has joined 
in one cry of ‘Long live the Republic, long live the National Garde!’ 
No more divisions; perfect unity, absolute liberty are before us. . . .” 

“ Come, come; do not waste your time upon that barbouillage ,” 
cries madame; “ here is our omnibus.” And as she spoke she hail- 


FUNERALIA. 


. 251 


ed a yellow omnibus that was quietly jogging in the direction of 
Neuilly. 

Everything was as usual when they got back to the villa, but Susy 
found to her dismay that Jo was still away. Max came in almost 
immediately after them; he seemed to have been chiefly concerned 
for their safety. 

Jo could take care of himself, he said, roughly. He must follow 
them later in the day if he did not get home before they left. The 
carriage was ordered and the concierge of the house they were going 
to had been forewarned. 


CHAPTER XXXVI. 

FUNERALIA. 

“ Seul avec sa torched— V. Hugo. 

Tiiere was a great deal to be done before the time which Susan- 
na had agreed upon with Max, when her mother was to be removed 
into Paris. Everything had to be quietly prepared ; but the boxes 
were packed, and all was in* readiness at the time appointed. 
Adolphe was outside waiting to help to carry Mrs. Marney in his 
strong maimed arms, Susy anxiously came and went, looking out 
for the carriage. She gathered a last bunch of lilac and brought it 
up to her mother’s room. She felt her heart sink as she thought of 
the pain she must give. 

“ Let me tie the flowers up for you,” cried Denise, meeting her in 
the door-way, and anxious to show her good-will. 

“ Susy,” said Mrs. Marney, as her daughter came into the room, 
followed by Denise carrying the lilac, “come and sit down here 
beside me, dear. Michael has been here. He is coming again.” 
She spoke gently; a very sweet expression was in her face. 

“When was he here, mamma?” said Susy, surprised. “I have 
only been away a few minutes.” And then in a moment she knew 
that it was all a sick woman’s hallucination. 

“He left as you came into the room. He wanted to see me. He 
came and stood by my bedside,” said Mrs. Marney. “He comes 
when I am alone. I tell him he must not neglect his work for me 
but he knows I like him to come. ” 

Her expression was so sweet, so strange, that Susy was still more 
frightened— she took her mother’s hand; it was very cold. 

“How sweet those lilacs are,” Mrs. Marney went ou. “ The hot 


252 


MRS. DYMOND. 


weather is here; I have been thinking the boys will be wanting their 
summer clothes. Susy, will you see to them when you go back ? 
You must not stop away any longer with me, dear. It is a rest to 
my heart to know my boys are in your care.” 

Susanna could not speak. She heard the wheels stop at the gate 
outside, and the thought of tearing her dying mother away seemed 
to her so cruel, so unnatural, that suddenly she realized that, what- 
ever happened, Mrs. Marney must be left in peace. It was at this 
moment that the door opened, and Du Parc came in quietly, follow- 
ed by Adolphe, prepared to carry the poor lady away. Susy put 
up a warning hand as they approached. 

Mrs. Marney smiled, seeing Max. “Ah, Max,” she said, “have 
you come for us? Take her away; take care of her. I have no 
strength to go with you, my dears. I shall stay quiet now, Susy,” 
she said, putting out her hand. As Susy caught her in her arms she 
gave a deep sigh, and her head fell upon her daughter’s shoulder. 
Max sprang to the bedside. 

“She is gone!” said Adolphe, in a whisper. “Poor lady! poor 
lady !” 

She was quiet at last, lying with closed eyes, with her hands cross- 
ed above the heart which ached no more. Susanna had sat all that 
long night by her mother’s bed. She had ceased to weep when 
morning came. She sat almost as quiet as her dead mother. Only 
yesterday, as it seemed to her, she had watched by another death- 
bed. Here again the awful hand had come across her path, divid- 
ing those living still from those who had lived. Susy was a child 
to no one any more — all her past, all her childhood was gone. The 
room was in order. Madame and Denise had helped to put it 
straight; there were more flowers out of the garden, a mass of 
spring blossom which Max had brought to the door in his arms and 
given to his mother. Everything was put straight forever. There 
would be no more work done, though the work-basket was still 
heaped; no more travelling, though Mary’s boxes were packed; no 
more talks, no more troubles. Marney’s strange trade of pen and 
ink had travelled elsewhere; so had the cheerful noises and shouts 
of the little boys their mother had so loved to hear. Mary wanted 
nothing any more. She had longed for her husband, and she had 
seen him, though he had not come to her; her daughter was by her 
side and held her hand, and death cannot seem anything but peace- 
ful to a mother with her child to tend her to the end. 

A sort of altercation on the lauding outside seemed strangely at 
variance with the stillness of the room. Madame’s indignant “ Qh! 


FUNERALIA. 


253 


no, no, you cannot pass like that,” aroused Mrs. Dymond. She 
went to the door and opened it quietly. “ What is it?” she said; as 
she did so, and not for the first time in her life, she came face to 
face with Marney, heated, excited — strangely excited. 

“I have travelled all night, and this old devil would keep me 
away from my poor Polly,” he cried. “ She wants me alive or dead, 
my poor, poor Polly! and that is why I am here,” he went on. 
“D’ye hear, Mrs. Dymond? For all your money and grandeur, ye 
didn’t love your husband as your mother loved me. Don’t bear 
malice!” he cried, more and more wildly. “You can give me a 
kiss, though you always hated me,” and he caught Susy in his arms, 
and then pushed her roughly away and went up to the coffin with 
a reeling step. “Polly!” he said, “ why didn’t you wait for me? — 
you knew I should come if I could! Ah! it’s the first time you ever 
failed me, my poor girl! I travelled all night. I could not have 
got through the night but for a dram,” he cried, excitedly. 

While he was still speaking thus incoherently, standing by the 
coffin, the sound of music outside came into the room through the 
open windows. It was the funeral march of a military band fol- 
lowing some famous patriot to his grave. To Susy, in her highly- 
strung condition, the sound seemed almost supernatural. She laid 
her hand on Marney’s arm, then with one look at her mother’s face 
she burst into tears and went out of the room. She met Max on 
the stairs hurrying up with a pale face; the thought of her trouble 
quite unnerved him. 

“My mother sent me for you,” he said. “Is Marney there? 
Has he frightened you?” 

She put her hand to her head. “No,” she said, “but I cannot . 
stay with him alone.” 

They could hear him walking up and down excitedly, talking 
and calling piteously for some one to come to him. Then the steps 
ceased, the music went dying up the street, other steps came sound- 
ing on the wooden stairs. Madame’s friend the young undertaker 
and his man came tramping up the wooden stairs, and all the dreary 
preparations for the funeral went on. 

The patriot’s procession, meanwhile, travelled on its way, the 
car, covered with flags, slowly winding through the streets of Paris; 
people looked on or fell into its train. For two hours it paraded 
thus, amid cries and shouts, and in time to the beat of the muffled 
drums and to the crashing music of a band which was conducted, 
so it was said, by the great Bergeret himself. It was late in the 
afternoon before it reached the gates of Montmartre, where the 


254 


MRS. DYMOND. 


women were selling their wreaths and immortelles. The great funer- 
al had hardly passed on its way when a second humble procession 
appeared— a bier, drawn by a single horse, and driven by Madame’s 
friend the young undertaker, followed by a carriage with some 
travelling-cases on the top. Marney was sitting on the box by the 
driver of the carriage; Madame Du Parc, her son, and her servant, 
and Susanna were inside. The carriage drew up by the roadway; 
Adolphe, who had come upon the bier, now T joined them, and they 
all passed in together along an avenue of graves and lilacs. The 
place was looking beautiful in the setting sunlight — for miles 
around they could see the country lighted by its rays. They came 
to the quiet corner where poor Mary’s grave had been dug under 
the golden branches of an acacia-tree. As they all stood by the 
open grave, united together for the last time by their common feel- 
ing for the woman who was gone, the muffled drums and funeral 
strains from the patriot’s grave still reached them from a distance. 
When Mary Marney was laid to her last rest, and the prayers were 
over, the officiating clergyman turned aside, pulling off his surplice 
and carrying it on his arm, and went and mingled with the crowd 
rouud about the hero’s grave. The end of his funeral eulogiumwas 
beiug pronounced — his last words had been“ Vive la Commune /” said 
a man in a black tail-coat and a red sash, and suddenly all the peo- 
ple round about took up the cry. Susy heard them cheering, as 
she stood by her mother’s grave. She was still very calm, awe-strick- 
en, and silent ; she had stayed alone after the others had all gone on. 
When she reached the iron gates by which they had come in, she 
found her step-father waiting for her. His hat was over his eyes; 
it may have been the light of the setting sun which dazzled him. 
He did not look round, but he spoke as she came up to him. 

“You will go and see the boys and tell them,” he said. “I 
know that for her sake you will be a good friend to them. As for 
me, do not fear that I shall trouble you. You can write to the of- 
fice if you have anything to say. I will send remittances from 
time to time, if necessary. But they will have their mother’s mon- 
ey now. I shall give orders for it to be paid to you; it is little 
enough, but it will be enough for them.” 

“Do you wish me to take care of tfie boys altogether?” Susy 
asked. 

“Just as you like,” said he, turning away with a sigh. “Your 
mother would have wished it so. You are more fit than I am.” 
A minute more and he was gone. It was the last time they ever 
met. Susy parted from him with something more like charity in 
her heart than she could have believed possible. He had made no 


FUNERALIA. 


255 


professions, he had left his hoys in her charge ; and while Susy had 
Dermy and Mikey to care for, she still seemed able to do something 
for her mother. Madame Du Parc, who had stood waiting a little 
way off, now also came up to take leave. 

“I, too, must say farewell, my child,” said the old lady, with 
some solemnity; “I can delay no longer, and you are returning to 
your home. My son will see you off. Ah ! Susy, we shall miss 
you sorely.” 

Susy could not speak ; she bowed her head, took her old friend’s 
hand in hers, and suddenly flinging her arms round her neck she 
burst into tears. 

“ God bless you, my dear child. Write very soon, and tell me of 
yourself, of your safe return,” said the old lady. Then looking 
about for the coachman, “Ah! it is insupportable! That man is 
not there. I shall miss my train ;” and madame, with renewed an- 
imation, trotted off towards the crowd. She came back a minute 
afterwards, followed by the coachman and her friend the under- 
taker. Max and Adolphe arrived at the same minute with a second 
carriage for Susanna, which they had been in search of. As the 
undertaker helped madame into the carriage, there came a parting 
cheer from the friends of the fallen patriot. 

“Listen to them,” said the man, shutting the door with a bang; 
“as if it were not better to die one’s proper, ’natural death (sa belle 
mort naturelle ) than to be shot and shouted over like this !” Max 
had delayed a moment to say a word to Susanna. 

“I must see my mother off,” he said. “It is more than likely 
you may find the Neuilly road blocked up; if you cannot get home, 
drive to this address, and wait till I come,” and he wrote something 
on a card and gave her a key. “It is the house to which I hoped 
you might have taken her for safety, it is that of a friend; you will 
find no one there,” he added. 

Susy was anxiously hoping to get back and to find Jo at the villa, 
but when they reached the Avenue de Neuilly, she found that 
Max’s warning was well advised. The way was impassable, a bar- 
rier had been erected; the Federals had established themselves; it 
was hopeless to try to return to the villa. 

“ Don’t fear, madame. I will get through the line,” said Adolphe, 
seeing her look of disappointment. “ I will find Mr. Jo and bring 
you news of him later.” And when Susy faintly exclaimed, ‘ ‘ I show 
them my hands, and they always let me pass,” said the poor fellow, 
laughing ruefully, and before she could say another word he was 
gone. 


17 


256 


MRS. DYMOND. 


CHAPTER XXXVII. 

/ 

IN AN EMPTY APARTMENT. 

“ Then go live his life out ; life will try his nerves 
When the sky, which noticed all, makes no disclosure , 

And the earth keeps up that terrible composure. ” 

R. Browning. 

The house to which Du Parc had directed Susy was at the cor- 
ner of the boulevard and the Rue Lavoisier, near the mortuary 
chapel which Madame Du Parc had once promised to visit with 
her. 

In this strange house, with the occasional roar and rush of the 
boulevard close at hand, the hours passed like some strange night- 
mare, so slowly, so long, so stifling in their silent oppression that 
Susy could scarcely believe that another hour was gone when the 
gilt clock struck. The apartment belonged to unknown people 
who had fled hastily, leaving their clothes and their possessions in 
confusion ; shoes and papers, packing-cases half packed, a parcel 
of silver spoons was lying on the table. The linen cupboards were 
open, with the neat piles disordered and overturned, the clocks were 
going, but the beds were not made. At first Susy set to work 
straightening, making order in the confusion, preparing a room for 
herself, another for Jo in case he should arrive. She swept and 
folded and put away, and made the rooms ready for the night. 
She put by a lady’s smart bonnet, a child’s pair of little boots. 
Had she been in any mood to do so, she might have pieced together 
the story of those to whom the home belonged; but she was dull, 
wearied out, only wanting news of Jo. As Mrs. Dymond worked 
on the time passed; then when the work was done, when she had 
established herself in one of the two bedrooms, when all was 
straight, and the linen piled afresh, and the doors of the cupboard 
closed, though the clocks still ticked on, time itself seemed to stop 
still. She was quite alone now; neither Jo nor Adolphe rejoined 
her, nor did Max come as he had promised. 

The rest of the house was also empty; the concierge was down be* 
low in his lodge, but except for him no one remained in the sunny, 
tall building lately so alive, so closely packed. 

There was one lady still remaining of all the inhabitants, the con* 


IN AN EMPTY APARTMENT. 


257 


cierge said, an English, lady — a dame de charite, who would not leave 
her poor; hut she was gone away for a day to visit a sick friend. 

Susy went down-stairs towards evening to ask if no letter had 
come for her. She even went out, at the porter’s suggestion, bare- 
headed, as people do in France, and bought some milk and some 
food from an adjoining shop, and then came back to the silent place. 

It was a most terrible experience, one which seemed so extraordi- 
nary that Mrs. Dymond could hardly believe that it was not all some 
dream from which she would presently awake. She waited till 
long past midnight and fell asleep at last on her bed; but towards 
four o’clock the sound of the cannon at Montmartre awoke her, and 
she sat up listening with a beating heart. There was a crucifix at 
the foot of the bed ; in her natural terror and alarm it seemed to her 
that the figure on the crucifix looked up in the early dawn. There 
was a picture beneath the crucifix of a Madonna with a burning 
heart. A longing, an unutterable longing came to poor Susanna 
for her own mother Mary’s tender, comforting, loving arms round 
her own aching heart — surely it was on fire too. How lonely she 
felt, how deserted. Max might have come last night, as he prom- 
ised. It seemed to Susy that she understood now for the first time 
what the secret of Mary Marney’s life had been — a secret that Susy 
herself had learned so unwillingly, so passionately, so late in life’s 
experience. If she had had any one to speak to everything might 
have seemed less vaguely terrible. As she was listening with a 
beating heart came a measured sound from without, that of a drum 
beating with a measured yet hurried roll; the rattle came closer and 
closer, and finally stopped under her very window. She started 
from the bed and ran and looked out. The dawn had just touched 
the opposite houses; another shutter opehed, then a door creaked, 
and a man came out, hastily buttoning his clothes, then a second 
stood in the door-way in shirt-sleeves, but he did not move. Then 
the drum rolled away again, and, with two men only following, 
passed down the street to the boulevard. The sound came fainter 
and more hopeless. Then the distant cannon began to boom once 
more, and some carts with soldiers galloped by. 

While Susy stood helplessly looking from her window the in- 
habitants of Paris were awake, and receiving the sun, as it at last 
dispelled the heavy morning fogs, with loud cries of “ Vive la j Re- 
'publique!" Drink was being distributed among the National Guards 
assembled in the Place de l’Hotel de Yille. Many of the bewildered 
soldiers who had been poured into the town all the preceding days 
were looking on and sharing in these festivities. Others, who had 
been out all night, were still wandering about the streets asking the 


258 


MRS. DYMOND. 


passers-by where they were to go for shelter. A band of armed pa- 
triots, crossing the Place de la Concorde, were shouting out “A 
Versailles /” with the same enthusiasm with which their predeces- 
sors had cried “A Berlin !” a few months before. Those whom 
they met along the road take up the cry ; the women assembling in 
the streets and door-ways were uttering fiercer, vaguer threats of 
vengeance against tyrants, against Versailles and the police, and, in- 
deed, before many hours had passed, the first of their unhappy vic- 
tims was being hunted to his death along the Rue des Martyrs. 
Alas! he was but the first of the many who were to follow, and 
whose nobler blood was destined to flow upon those cruel stones. 

Reading the papers of those days we see that an imposing depu- 
tation was preparing to visit the Place de la Bastille, carrying a red 
Phrygian flag before it; that the new self -elected government was 
gloriously proclaiming that “Perfect Unity, that Liberty entire and 
complete,” of which we have heard so much; for the people of Paris 
had nobly shaken off the despotism which had sought to crush it to 
the gound. “ Calm and impassive in its force, it was standing (so 
say Billoray, Varlin, Jourde, Ch. Lullier, Blanchet, Pougeret, etc., 
etc.), and incontestably proving a patriotism equal to the height of 
present circumstances.” 

What were all these echoes to Susy at her window, looking out 
with her heavy, anxious heart? Jo! Max! where were they? what 
were they about? Ah! would these terrible hours never pass? 

She dressed very early, lit a fire, and prepared a meal with the tin 
of milk which she had bought the day before. It was an unuttera- 
ble relief to hear the door-bell ring about eight o’clock in the morn- 
ing. She found the concierge outside bringing up water from the 
pump below, and a note which had been left very early in the morn- 
ing before he was up. Susy tore it open. The note was in Max’s 
writing; it had no beginning nor date, but its news was new life to 
poor Susy. It was in English. 

“I have tidings of Jo. Marney, by good-fortune, heard of him, 
and sent me word. He is in custody, and I have gone after him, 
and hope to bring him back safe to you. Meet us to-day at one 
o’clock at the station by which you came. Adolphe will conduct 
you safely there. M. du P.” 

Susy burst into tears of relief, and sank into a chair. The con- 
cierge looked on compassionately at la petite dame, as he called her, 
carried his pails into the kitchen, and returned on tiptoe, so as to 
show his friendly sympathy. How the morning passed Mrs. Dy- 
mond could scarcely have told; at twelve o’clock Adolphe appeared 


AT THE TERMINUS. 


259 


with a porter’s knot upon his strong shoulders to carry her bag and 
her parcel of shawls. He had been vexed to fail her the night be- 
fore ; he was coming off when a messenger from Du Parc had met 
him with a parcel of letters, which he had been obliged to deliver, 
lie had been about the streets till one o’clock at night. * ‘ It was a 
real corvee," said Adolphe. “But it was apparently in your service, 
madame,” he continued, politely. “ It is necessary in these days to 
make one’s plans beforehand, and if people won’t agree to reason, 
one must use a little compulsion. ” 

Susy did not understand very well what he was saying. She 
walked by his side, 'questioning him about Max and Jo. He could 
tell her very little, except that Du Parc had sent him on these er- 
rands. As they were walking along, side by side, suddenly a quiet- 
looking woman in a white cap and black dress crossed the street, 
and came up and caught Susy by the dress. 

“Oh!” she said, “why do you stay here? You are English. 
What do you do here? It is not your home. Go home, go home; 
you don’t know what dangers are about you here.” Then she 
pushed Susy from her, and hurried on wildly, wringing her hands 
as she went. 

“Curious woman,” says Adolphe, imperturbably. “She is not 
so far wrong. Come, madame, we must not be too late. There 
don’t seem to be many people left anywhere,” he said, looking 
about him. 

“How strangely empty the streets are,” said Mrs. Dymond. 
“The railway Place is quite deserted, and the station, too, looks 
shut.” 


CHAPTER XXXVIII. 

AT THE TERMINUS. 

“ . . . Bar we the gates! 

Check we, and chain we, and each chine stop, 

That no light leap in at louvre nor at loop ; 

And thou, Ashtaroth, hoot out and have out our knaves. . . . 

Brimstone boiling, burning , out-cast it 

All hot on their heads that enter nigh the walls , 

Set bows of brake and brazen guns 
And shoot out shot enough. ...” 

W. Langley: “ Ward's English Poets.'" 

The station was shut, the doors and windows seemed closely 
barred, but as they looked they saw a side-door which was held 
cautiously ajar. Adolphe kicked with his foot, and in a minute 


260 


MRS. DYMOND. 


they were let in. . . . Within was a strange scene of crowded con- 
fusion and excitement — baggage in piles, people in groups clinging 
together, women wringing their hands and weeping, men gesticu- 
lating. In one of the waiting-rooms there was a crowd round a 
wounded man, in another a woman in hysterics. 

“Did you see nothing?” cried half a dozen voices as Susy entered, 
following Adolphe. 

“ We saw nothing at all ; we met nobody anywhere,” said he. 
“ What is the matter with you all?” 

Then they were told by a dozen voices of a fight which had taken 
place only a few minutes before in the open Pfa^'outside the station. 
Some of the Federal prisoners were being brought up to the station 
to be taken to Versailles to be judged. It was a grave affair. They 
were accused of participation in the murder of the generals. The 
Federals had made a desperate attempt to deliver their men from 
the hands of the escort. The escort had driven off the attack, and 
fought its way into the station. The prisoners were all now safely 
shut up in the railway- carriages and doubly guarded; the Federals 
had retreated — whether for good or whether they had only gone for 
reinforcements it was impossible to say. Adolphe’s face fell, though 
he tried to look pleased. 

“They are all on a wrong scent,” cries a man in his shirt-sleeves. 
“They have got hold of Papa Caron among others who never 
touched a fly. I saw the man who struck down Clement Thomas. 
I should know him again. He is not one of these. The old man 
was lying on the ground; they struck him down with the butt-end 
of their guns. ” 

There was a murmur of horror all round, as the narrator, a nat- 
ural dramatist, as most Frenchmen are, threw up his arms and re- 
acted the dreadful scehe. Susy turned sick with horror. 

“Your train will be starting in about ten minutes,” her compan- 
ion was beginning, when suddenly his tone changes. “Take care! 
take care ! this way, madame,” cries Adolphe, suddenly thrusting 
himself before her. “Up! up! on the seat!” 

With a sudden cry the crowd began to sway, to fly in every direc- 
tion; the great centre door of the station trembled under the blows 
which were being struck from without. There was a brief parley 
from a window, a man standing on a truck began to shout — 

“Let them in! They want to deliver the prisoners! They will 
hurt nobody.” 

A woman close by screamed and fainted. As Susy w r as stooping 
and helping to pull her up upon the bench the two great folding 
doors suddenly burst open, letting in the light, and a file of Federal 


AT THE TERMINUS. 


261 


soldiers marching in step and military order. Adolphe, who had 
thrust Susy into a corner of the mile , now helped to raise the faint- 
ing woman, with Susy’s assistance, as she stood on the bench, out 
of the rush of the crowd, while he and his hotte made a sort of 
rampart before them. 

‘ ‘ Don’t be frightened, ” he said, ‘ ‘ no one will fight ; the prisoners’ 
escort will see it is no use making a stand against such numbers. 
Pardie, they are off!” he cried, excitedly, for as he spoke the engine 
outside gave a shrill whistle and started off upon the lines. Susy, 
from her place by the window, could see the train slowly steaming 
out of the station. There was a wild shout from the spectators. 
What was it that Susy also saw through the barred window by 
which she stood (half a dozen other heads below were crowding 
against the panes which looked to the platform)? She saw a figure; 
surely it was familiar to her, it could be none other than Max who 
was flying down the lines to the signal-posts, and in another minute 
the train, still snorting and puffing, began to slacken speed, then 
finally stopped, then backed, then stopped again. 

‘ ‘ The danger signals are all up. They don’t dare advance !” cried 
some of the men at the window. 

“ That is it, bien trouve. Look out, madame. What do you see?” 
cried Adolphe, eagerly, from below. 

Meanwhile the detachment of Federals, still in good order, still 
advancing, came on, lining the centre of the hall, spreading out 
through the door on to the side of the platform along which the 
Versailles train had started. There was a second platform on the 
other side of the station from which Susy’s own train to Rouen and 
Havre was also making ready to start. It was curious to note how 
methodically common life went on in the midst of these scares and 
convulsions. Suddenly Susy, with a sinking, sickening heart, real- 
ized that the moment for her own departure had almost come; again 
she thought of Max’s note and of its promise. Alas! alas! it had 
not been fulfilled — no Jo was there. If she went, she must go alone ! 
all was too rapid for her to formulate either her fear or her hope, 
but while she hesitated there was a fresh stir among the crowd, and 
a functionary’s voice was heard shouting, “Passengers for Rouen 
and Havre en voiture /” 

“You see it is all right!” said Adolphe, cheerfully. “You had 
better go, madame ; I will wait here in case your son should come, 
to send him after you. He is big enough to travel alone,” said the 
young man, nodding to re-assure her, though he looked very pale, 
and his face belied his cheerful words. 

She was in utter perplexity; she knew not what to do — what to 


262 


MRS. DYMOND. 


determine ; of one thing and one only was she sure, Max had prom- 
ised to find Jo, to save him, and he would keep his word. Yes, it 
would be better to go on; her presence was hut an encumbrance; 
Max could help Jo; that much she knew; what could she do but 
add to their perplexities. The fainting woman was already reviv- 
ing, Susy sprang down from the bench with Adolphe’s help, and as 
she did so she heard another shout, a loud cheer. The crowd swayed. 
Between the ranks of the soldiers came the triumphant procession 
of Federals with their red scarfs, returning from the platform, and 
at the head of it Caron borne in triumph on some of his own work- 
men’s shoulders. Half a dozen liberated prisoners were marching 
after him, shouting wildly and tossing hats and handkerchiefs. 

Caron, who had been a prisoner among the rest, was smiling un- 
disturbed and quiet as ever, and bowing and softly waving his hat. 
To be safe mattered little to him, but his heart was overflowing with 
grateful pride and pleasure at the manner of his release; the rally 
of his friends, the determination with which his workmen had united 
to defend him against his enemies filled his heart with peaceful 
content. 

Mrs. Dymond, speechless, open-eyed, was still looking after him 
with breathless interest and surprise, when her own turn came, her 
own release from cruel suspense. A hand was laid on her shoulder, 
she was hugged in two strong arms and fairly lifted off the ground, 
and Jo, grinning, delighted, excited and free, was by her side once 
more. 

“I am going back with you, Mrs. Dymond,” said he; “it’s all 
right. I’ve got my return ticket.” 

“ He has given us trouble enough!” cries Max, coming up behind 
him, breathless and excited too. “For Heaven’s sake carry him off 
at once now you have got him. It is time you were in the train. 
The troops may be upon us again. He is not yet safe!” 

“Nonsense! I was safe all through,” said Jo, laughing; “but we 
know Caron has enemies. Lucky for him Max remembered the 
danger signals.” 

All the time Jo spoke Du Parc was hurrying Susanna along to- 
wards the platform from which the Rouen train was starting. It 
was approached by a turnstile, where they were met by an excited 
functionary who let Jo and his return ticket through, but angrily 
opposed the passage of Adolphe and the luggage. It was no use 
waiting to discuss the matter, the man was terribly excited and time 
was pressing. 

“Take the bag and find some places,” Max cried, handing the 
things over the barrier to Jo. 


AT THE TERMINUS. 


263 


Susy paused for one minute. “Good-bye, Adolphe,” she said; 
“ I shall never forget your kindness — never, never.” Then she raised 
her eyes, looking steadily into Du Parc’s face. All the passing flush 
of success was gone from it. He was drawing his breath heavily ; 
he looked anxious, harassed. Susy, too, was very pale, and she held 
by the wooden barrier. 

“ I — I can’t leave you in this horrible place,” she said, passionate- 
ly. “How can I say good-bye?” and as she spoke she burst into 
uncontrollable tears. 

He took her in his arms, then and there, before them all — who 
cared? — who had time to speculate upon their relations? 

“I shall come to you; don’t say good-bye,” he said; “we are not 
parting,” and he held her close and breathless to his beating heart; 
and then in a moment more he had put her away with gentle 
strength, and pushed her through the gate. The wooden turnstile 
was between them, his pale face was immediately lost in the sway of 
the crowd, a dozen people came between them; she found herself 
roughly hurried along, thrust into the first open carriage. Jo leaped 
in after her, the door was banged. Afterwards Susy remembered 
it all, at the time she hardly noticed what w T as happening. There 
were other people in the carriage — some sobbing, some talking in- 
coherently, all excited, exasperated, incoherent. “ (Test trop! c’est 
tropf c’est trop!” one man was shrieking over and over again; “I 
can bear no more. I am going— yes, I am going! I am leaving this 
accursed city.” Another young fellow, leaning forward with his 
face in his hands, was sobbing audibly; he was oddly dressed in the 
fashion of the first Revolution, with a high Robespierre hat and big 
flaps to his coat. Jo was very silent, and sat for a long time staring 
at his fellow-travellers. It was not till they reached Rouen, and the 
re-assuring German helmets came round about the carriage windows 
asking what had happened in Paris, that Josselin began to talk to 
his step - mother. He had met Caron that morning after he left 
them at the villa, and was walking with him from the station, when 
they had both been suddenly arrested, together with a young man 
who had only joined them a few minutes before. They were not 
allowed a word. They were hurried off, and all three locked up in 
a guard-house, where they were kept during the two days. Late on 
the afternoon of the second day they were moved to a second corps 
de garde. On their way from one place to another, they fortunately 
passed Marney in the street. “ I shouted to him,” said Jo, for I 
knew he would let you know, and I knew he had been at work when 
Caron received a message through one of the soldiers — they were 
most of them half Federals — that we were to be rescued. I don’t 


264 


MRS. DYMOND. 


think he or I was in very much danger, ” Jo added, “but the third 
man had been a soldier, and would have been shot, so Caron told 
me afterwards. He was a fine fellow — half an Englishman ; they 
called him Russell, or some such name.” 

“Oh! Jo, I have got you safe,” said Susy, beginning to cry again ; 
“I can’t think — I can’t speak — I can’t feel — any more. ...” 

“Why should you?” said Jo, practically. “Give me. your ticket 
for fear you should lose it;” and then he settled himself comfortably 
to sleep in his corner, smiled at her, and pulled down the blind. 
Susy could not rest; she sat mechanically watching the green plains 
and poplar-trees flying past the window. She was nervously un- 
hinged by the events of the last two days; the strain had been very 
great. She longed to get back to silence, to home, to the realization 
of that one moment of absolute relief. She felt as if she could only 
rest again with Phraisie in her arms, only thus bear the renewed 
suspepse, the renewed anxiety. But she knew at the same time, 
with grateful, indescribable relief, that her worst trouble was over 
now, even though prison bars, distance, a nation’s angry revenge lay 
between her and that which seemed so great a portion of her future 
life. Circumstances were changed from the day when she thought 
she had parted from Max forever. Tempy was married, her poor 
mother was gone. The boys were no longer dependent upon her 
for everything. Jo was a man now, and able to make his own life 
good. 

They reached home on the evening of the second day. The car- 
riage was waiting at the station with Phraisie in it. The drive did 
Susy good after all these tragic, distorted days, during which she 
had been living this double life. Little Phraisie, blooming and hap- 
py, was her best peace-maker. 

A gentle wind blew in their faces, a gentle evening burned away 
in quiet gleams; the sky was gray and broken, the soft golden gates 
of the west were opening wide, and seemed to call to weary spirits 
to enter into the realms of golden peace. The hedges on either side 
were white with the garlands of spring. The dogs, that had been 
set loose, came barking to meet them, as the wheels turned in at the 
familiar home gates. The servants appeared eager to welcome. Jo 
silently gave the reins into the coachman’s hand, and sprang down 
and handed out his step-mother with something of his father’s care- 
ful courtesy. Little Phraisie, delighted to be once more at home, 
went running from room to room, calling to Jo and to her mother 
as she went. It was home, Susy felt, and not only home but a- kind, 
tender home, full of a living past, with a sense of the kindness that 
was not dead. 


CARON. 


265 


Phraisie was put to bed ; dinner was laid in the library for the 
young man and his step-mother. Jo sat, still silent, revolving many 
things in his mind. From a stripling he had grown to be a man in 
the last few weeks. His expedition, his new experience, Tempy’s 
marriage, his own responsibility — all these things had sobered him, 
and taught him to realize the importance of the present, of other 
people’s opinion, of his duty to his neighbor. His neighbor at that 
moment -was his step-mother sitting in her accustomed place. 

“ Here we are beginning our life together again, Mrs. Dymond,” 
said he at last. “We get on very well, don’t we?’' 

“Very well, dear Jo,” Susy said, smiling, “and so we shall until 
some one who has more right to be here than I have comes to live 
at the Place.” 

“ What are you talking about?” says Jo, blushing up. “I don’t 
mean to marry for years to come, if that is what you mean.” 

“Ah, my dear,” said Susy, with some emotion, “ make no prom- 
ises; you do not know; you cannot foretell. One can never fore- 
tell.” 

He looked hard at her. He guessed that Susy had not come back 
to them as she went away. She turned a little pale when she saw 
his eyes fixed upon her. It seemed to her as if her story must be 
written in her face. She might have told him — she need not have 
been ashamed — but she felt as if his father’s son was no proper con- 
fidant. 

Long after Jo had gone to bed she sat by the dying fire, living 
over and over those terrible days, those strange, momentous hours. 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

CARON. 

“ Fear no more the heat o' the sun , 

Nor the furious winter's rages; 

Thou thy worldly task hast done , 

Home art gone , and ta'en thy wages." 

We must refer those of our readers who take any interest in the 
subsequent adventures of Max and his contemporaries to the pages 
of the Daily Velocipede for some account of those days which follow- 
ed Susy’s departure from Paris. Marney’s eloquent pen, dipped in 
dynamite and gunpowder, flashing with flame and sensation, became 
remarked beyond the rest, and brought readers by hundreds to his 


266 


MRS. DYMOND. 


paper. He was everywhere, saw everything, so graphic were his 
descriptions, so minute, so full of enthusiasm, that it was impossible 
for more experienced newspaper readers than Susy to say how much 
he *wrote from his own observation, or what hearsay legends he 
translated into his own language, which, whatever its merits or de- 
merits, did not lack in vividness. Susy scanned the columns day 
by day with anxious eyes for more and more news. She found sa 
much that she was almost bewildered by it, and scarcely knew what 
to believe; as for direct intelligence of Max, scarcely any came to 
her, though madafhe sent letters from time to time from her farm at 
Avignon. But madame’s letters chiefly described her olive-trees, her 
cow, her pig, her eggs, and her tomatoes. Max delayed ; he did not 
rejoin her as she had hoped he might have done ; he left her to do 
it all, to engage the man, to contract with the hotels for her eggs 
and butter. Susy wrote to madame from time to time, telling her 
about little Phraisie and the two boys, who were doing well at their 
school. In one letter Susy also described a domestic event, of which 
the news had reached Tarndale soon after her return from Paris. 
Uncle Peregrine Bolsover had died suddenly from the effects of a 
snake bite. He had left no will, but Charlie became undisputed 
heir to the Bolsover estates, and Uncle Bol now transferred to him 
the allowance which Peregrine had hitherto enjoyed; but this news 
did not interest Madame Du Parc in the least. The price of butter had 
fallen, and her mind was preoccupied by more present contingencies. 

As the events multiplied in France, as the storms raged more and 
more fiercely, those who had remained hoping to stem the waves 
felt every day more helpless; the sea was too rough, the evil blasts 
too high — what voice could be heard? what orders could prevail? 
Captains and leaders were powerless now. For the first time Caron 
lost courage and confidence. The murder of the hostages seemed 
like a death-blow to the dear old man, who could not believe in the 
wickedness of men whom he had trusted and loved with all his 
threescore years, during which he himself, though he did not know 
it, had been as a hostage for good and for truth among the irration- 
al and ignorant people. He moped, his blue eyes were dim, his steps 
were slow. Max hardly recognized him one day when he met him 
coming out of his own door- way in the Rue du Bac. He was carry- 
ing some letters to a post-office hard by; he seemed glad to take Du 
Parc’s strong arm. 

“I am tired; I feel ill,” he said. “I feel disgraced and utterly 
ashamed; this is no liberty, no republic any more. This is tyranny, 
monstrous wickedness ; these crimes of the brutal ignorant have only 


CARON. 


267 


the excuse of ignorance. If I, if others before me, had done our 
simplest duty in life, such blank ignorance would not now exist.” 

Max felt his heart sore for his old friend. He himself had hoped 
less of his fellow-creatures; he was more angry and less crushed 
than Caron. 

“ If these brutes had listened to your teaching,” he said, trying to 
cheer him, “and to that of sensible men, it might have all turned 
out differently. They will still have to learn before they can cease 
to be brutes.” 

“I have no more strength to teach,” said Caron. “Max, do you 
know that I have left you all? — all my theories, my failures, my in- 
eptitudes, my realities, mes cheres verites ,” he said. “You must 
make the best use you can of it all. You can ask for the memo- 
randa and papers. I gave them to your friend, la douce Susanne. 
They will be for you and your children, my dear son. If you escape 
from this terrible catastrophe, go to her. I think that with her you 
will find happiness.” 

Max, greatly touched, pressed his old friend’s arm. “ One can 
scarcely look forward,’' he said, “ from one hour to another; but 
you have guessed rightly; if happier times ever come for me, they 
could only be with her.” 

Cardn’s eyes lighted up. 

“That is well,” he said, with a bright smile. Then, giving him 
the letters, “ I had been about to post them,” he said. “Will you 
leave them for me? They will be safer if they go by hand. You 
have done me good,” he added. “ I shall return home quietly.” 

Max left him at the turn of the street. 

Is it chance, is it solemn fatality — by what name is one to call that 
flash of fate suddenly falling upon men as they journey on their 
way, that lightning flash which falls without warning, irrevocable, 
undreamed of, rending the veil of life forever? 

While Caron turned slowly homeward to his quiet study, where 
old Madeline was at work against his return, a mad crowd had gath- 
ered in an adjoining street, and was pursuing with cruel rage a 
wretched victim who flew along a narrow alley, and came rushing 
across the pavement upon which Caron was walking. 

The victim, a gendarme, torn, wounded, bleeding in the temples, 
ran straight against Caron and fell helpless at his knees, pursued by 
the yelling mob. 

The old man seemed suddenly roused to a young man’s strength 
of indignation, and flung himself before the victim. 

“Stop!” he cried to the mob. “What are you doing? I am 
Caron. You know me. Let this man pass!”, 


268 


MRS. DYMOND. 


For a moment, startled by his voice, his fearless, commanding look, 
they hung back; but out of the crowd a huge, half-drunken com- 
munist came striding up, and putting out his hand with a tipsy 
chuckle, tried to pull forward the poor fainting wretch. 

Caron pulled an official scarf from his pocket, and holding it up 
in his left hand, struck the man in the face with it. 

“That man is drunk,” Caron cried, appealing to the crowd, “and 
you people— you let yourselves be led by such as he?” 

The people looked at the scarf, hesitated, began to murmur and 
make way, but the drunken leader, still chuckling and stupid, seized 
the miserable victim again. 

“Let him go, I tell you,” said Caron. “It is the will of the peo- 
ple.” 

“Silence! or I shoot you, too!” cried the brute, pulling out a pis- 
tol, and aiming it at the fainting heap upon the pavement. 

With the natural impulse of one so generous, the old man sprang 
forward to turn the arm, but he was too late. The pistol went off, 
and Caron fell back, silent indeed, and forever. 

The murderer, half sobered, stood with his pistol confronting them 
all, as Caron had done a*moment before, and then began to back 
slowly. The crowd wavered and suddenly dispersed. 

* 

“ Silence!” cry the blasphemers to those who from generation to 
generation, by love, by work, by their very being, testify to the truth. 
And the good man dies in his turn, but the words of his life and the 
truth he tried to live live on. There is neither speech nor language; 
but their voices are heard among them, their sound is gone out into 
all lands, and their words into the ends of the world. . . . 

Susanna was spared the shock of reading the news of Caron’s 
death in the paper. Marney wrote to her, telling her of the event 
as he had heard it, simply, and without the comments he afterwards 
added in print. 

To the papers this was but an incident in those awful times; the 
readers of M. Maxime du Camp’s eloquent and most terrible vol- 
umes will find many and many such noted there ; they will also find 
an episode curiously like one in which Max du Parc was (according 
to the Daily Velocipede ) concerned, and which happened upon the 
last of those terrible nights during which the flames raged and 
fought on the side of madness in furious might and irresponsibility. 
“Was this the end of it all — of the visions of that gentle old teacher 
of a gospel which was for him indeed, but not for frenzied demons 
and desperate madmen?” thought Max, as he tried a short cut across 
the Carrousel, round which the flames were leaping madly. The 


CARON. 


269 


gate into the Tuileries, by which he had come with Susanna once, 
was closed ; he had to turn back and fight his way along the crowds 
and the ramparts of the Rue de Rivoli again, to the MinistSre de la 
Marine, whither he was bound. Some weeks before, Caron’s influ- 
ence had appointed Max to some subordinate place under the Com- 
mune in the Ministere de la Marine. In his first natural fury and 
heart-rent grief at his old friend’s death, Du Parc’s impulse had 
been to wash his hands of the whole thing, and the guilt and wicked 
confusion, and to come away with the rest; then came the remem- 
brance of that life-long lesson of forbearance and tenacity; that 
strange sense — which some men call honor only — awoke; that 
strange sense of secret duty that keeps men at their guns, faithfully 
fighting for an unworthy cause in the front of an overwhelming 
force. Was it also some feeling of honest trust in himself which 
impelled Caron’s disciple to stapd to his post? He remained, pro- 
testing, shrewdly and intelligently using every chance for right. . 
He had been to the Central Committee just now to protest in vain 
against the destruction of the building where he had been left. He 
represented that it was full of sick people; the lower rooms were 
used as hospital wards. “The sick people must be moved,” yelled 
the chiefs; but the fiat had gone forth. The Versaillais had reached 
the Rondpoint of the Champs Elysees; they should find Paris a 
heap of charred remains before they entered her streets. 

Max got back through the wild saturnalia of the streets, where 
dishevelled women were dancing round the flames, and men, yelling 
and drunken, were howling out that the last day had come; he 
reached the Minist&re at last, to find that a band of officials with sign- 
ed orders were deliberately smearing the walls and staircases with 
petroleum in readiness for firing; while down below, with infinite 
pains and delays, the sick were being slowly moved from their shelter 
into the street. In vain the communists swore and raged at the 
delay; slowly, and more slowly, did the doctor and his nurses get 
through their arduous work. Max saw at a glance what was in 
their minds— a hope that the delay might be long enough to save the 
place; for the Versaillais were within a quarter of an hour’s march, 
and once they were there all danger would be over. “ Good God!” 
said the poor doctor in an undertone, wiping his perspiring brow, 

“ why don’t they come on? Will they wait till Doomsday?” 

Max shrugged his shoulders as he stood looking on for a moment. 
The band of incendiaries, having finished their preliminary work, 
had adjourned to a small room or office on the first floor, where they 
sat gloomily drinking round a table and awaiting their summons, 
and the news that the hospital wards were evacuated. 


270 


MRS. DYMOND. 


Du Parc passed on and climbed the stairs, and went and stood 
upon a flat terrace on the roof, from which he could see the heavens 
alight with the lurid glare of the flames now bursting from every 
side. To the right the Rue Royale was burning; to the left, on the 
other side of the waters, which repeated the flames, the whole of the 
Rue de Lille was in a blaze. Close at hand the offices of the Finance 
were on fire, while the Tuileries were an ocean of flame. At his 
feet was the Place de la Concorde, silent, deserted, covered with 
wrecks, with broken statues and monuments ; beyond the Place de 
la Concorde lay the sombre green of the Champs Elysees, showing 
here and there some faintly twinkling bivouac fire. 

Suddenly, as he looked, his brain reeled ; then he put his hands to 
his head, and tears came into his eyes and seemed to save him. The 
clock below struck the hour; for a moment he hesitated, then his 
resolution was taken. He made certain observations, and down the 
stairs by which he had come hurried back. When he reached the 
door of the room where the communists were still sitting, he passed 
his fingers through his hair, he tore open his shirt; he had deliberate- 
ly smeared his hands in some black cinders lying in a heap on the 
roof, and with his fingers he now blackened his face, and flinging 
violently open the door, hurried in, crying out the terrible pass-word 
of those sad times, “We are betrayed! we are betrayed! The Ver- 
saillais are upon us; they have surrounded us. Stop! not that way! 
I will lead you,” he cried, as the men rose half scared, half drunk, 
looking for an exit. “Follow me,” he cried, flying up the stairs 
once more and followed by the gang ; and turning by the upper pas- 
sages to the lofts and back garrets, he left them suddenly, promising 
to return. Then, shutting a heavy door upon them, he double- 
locked them in. When he hurried down to the ground-floor he 
found that three wounded men only remained; they were lying on 
the ground, ready to be carried out. 

“You can take your time,” he said to the doctor, “the incendi- 
aries are up-stairs under lock and key. ” 

The doctor immediately gave the word to his assistants, and the 
wounded, who had been carried out with infinite pain and patience, 
were now brought back again, and were lying in their usual places 
when the Versaillais marched in an hour later. 


l’envoi. 


271 


L’ENVOI. 

“ With the London hubbub, 

Over -tired and pestered, 

I sought out a subbub 
Where I lay sequestered." 

“ The Idler W. M. T. 

When the flames were extinguished, when the great panic was 
subsiding, then came the day of reprisals; and the unhappy Parisi- 
ans, who, after enduring so much with patience, had broken out in 
their madness, now fell under the scourge once more. Perhaps 
nothing during the war, not even the crazed monstrosities of the 
desperate commune, has ever been more heart-breaking to hear of 
than the accounts of the cold-blooded revenge of the Versaillais. 

But for this again we must refer our readers to the Daily Veloci- 
pede, in the columns of which Max was reported to be among the 
condemned prisoners ; but Susy was surprised and re-assured by an 
ambiguous letter, which reached her at Crowbeck Place, from no 
less well-informed a person than Mr. Bagginal of the English Em- 
bassy. 

“ I have executed your commission,” so it began. (Susy had not 
given Mr. Bagginal any commission, and she turned the letter over 
in some surprise.) “I am sending you the photographs of the 
ruins and of Paris that you wished for in its present changed as- 
pect. I hope also to have some pen-and-ink etchings to forward at 
the same time. They are by our companion of last year, who has 
been doing some very good work lately, though he complains of the 
light of his present studio ; he hopes, however, to be able to remove 
before long to some more commodious quarters. If you should like 
any more of his drawings, you can always find them at a toyshop 
in the Brompton Road, which I believe you and Miss Phraisie are 
sometimes in the habit of patronizing. Pray present my compli- 
ments to that young lady, and tell her I shall bring over some bon- 
bons when I next come. They are making them now of chocolate, 
in the shape of cannon-balls and of shells, filled with vanille creams, 
which I assure you are excellent. Believe me, dear Mrs. Dymond, 
always most faithfully yours, C. E. Bagginal,” 


18 


272 


MRS. DYMOND. 


The photographs arrived by the next post, and with them a sketch 
of the well-remembered studio in the villa, and another very elabo- 
rately finished drawing of a dark box-room in Mr. Bagginal’s lodg- 
ings, where the artist must have spent a good many hours; the third 
drawing was a slight sketch of the little shop-front in the Brompton 
Road, with Mrs. Barry’s name over the door- way. Susy recognized 
it at once, for she had been there and had often heard of the place 
from Max himself. 

Two days afterwards, Susy, with Caron’s packet in her hand, was 
driving along Knightsbridge towards the little shop ; in a strangely 
anxious and excited frame of mind she got out of her hansom, dis- 
missed the man, and stood for an instant in the door-way gathering 
courage to go in. 

It seemed to her as if all the toys were feeling for her as she 
stood there — the dolls with their goggle blue eyes, the little donkej^s 
and horses, the sheep with their pink and blue ribbons. They all 
seemed sympathizing and to be making mute signs; she saw the 
little trumpets in their places and the sugar-candy stores; she could 
have bought up the whole shopful, but the small assemblage would 
not have seemed the same to her in any other place. Here in the 
suburban street, with the carts passing and repassing, and the hos- 
pitals and buildings, the quiet little shop, haunted by the children’s 
smiling faces, seemed to shrink away from the busy stream outside. 
As Susy stood there all the dolls seemed to put up their leather arms 
in deprecation, crying, “ Don’t come in here; we belong to peaceful 
toy-land, we have to do with children only, not with men and women 
with grown-up hearts.” The woman who kept the shop had left the 
parlor door open, and Susy could see the window and the old Lon- 
don garden beyond, the square panes with autumn creepers peeping 
through. 

As Susanna entered, Mrs. Barry came out from her parlor, and 
Susy with faltering lips asked her if she could give her any news 
of M. Du Parc. “ I have some papers which I want to send him,” 
said Mrs. Dymond. 

“I will call him, ma’am,” said the woman, very quietly; “he 
came last night;” and almost as she was speaking the door opened 
and Max was there. 

Clap your pink arms, oh, goggle eyes, ba woolly lambs, play mu- 
sical boxes, ring penny trumpets, turn cart-wheels, and let the hap- 
py lovers meet! 

Two more people are happy in this care-worn world ; they are to- 
gether, and what more do they ask! 


L 7 ENVOI. 


273 


Du Parc had escaped, although his name was on the list of those 
attainted. Mr. Bagginal could, perhaps, if he chose, give the pre- 
cise details of the young man’s evasion from the back room where 
he had spent so many dull days. Mr. Bagginal sent him over with 
a letter to Mr. Vivian, that good friend of art and liberty. I know 
not if it was Sir Frederick, or Sir George, or Sir John to whom 
Mr. Vivian in turn introduced Du Parc on his arrival, and who re- 
ceived him with cordial deeds and words of help and recommenda- 
tion. He was bade to leave his toyshop and take up his abode 
with the Vivians for a time, and work and make his way in the 
London world. His admirable etching of Mrs. Vivian and her two 
daughters first brought him into notice and repute; it was followed 
by the publication of that etching already mentioned of a beautiful 
young woman gazing at a statue. Du Parc was able, fortunately, 
to earn from the very first ; later he had more money than he knew 
what to do with, and his old acquaintance in Soho, Mr. White, more 
than once had occasion to acknowledge with thanks communica- 
tions which passed between Max and Susy and his own particular 
branch of the Society for the Organization of the Relief of Dis- 
tress. 

The papers, of which Maxwell du Parc had not at first realized 
the importance, and which Susanna brought him, contained, be- 
sides many theories and verses half finished, a duly signed will 
whiclwery materially affected Max’s future prospects. Caron had 
left him his heir and executor, his trustee for his works and his 
men. It is true the old man’s fortune had been greatly reduced by 
late events and by the expenses of his establishment, but his houses 
were standing still, his machinery and his workshops were still 
there— most of the workmen had clung to the enterprise in which 
they had a personal stake; and though it was not possible for Max, 
an unwilling exile, to return to France, yet Adolphe was found ca- 
pable and able to replace him for the time on the spot. Mikey 
and Dermy, it was hoped, would be in time able to take their share 
in the management of the works. 

When the general amnesty was proclaimed about four years ago 
Max was once more free to return to France. Susy most certainly 
would not like to leave England altogether, but she is glad to go 
from time to time to the low white house with the shutters among 
the willows and poplar-trees in the little village near the paper- 
mills. “Les Saules” is a happy meeting - place for her English 
friends, and there upon the iron bench by the shining glass ball in 
the garden sits old Madame Du Parc from Avignon, admiring her 
northern grandchildren. 


274 


MRS. DYMOND. 


They come up in a little file headed by Phraisie, who is perhaps 
also dragging a little Bolsover by the hand. 

Promenons-nous dans les bois, 

Pendant que le loup n’y est pas, 

sing the little voices, taking up in their turn that song of childhood 
and innocent joy which reaches from generation to generation, 
which no sorrow, no disaster, will ever silence while this world 
rolls on. 


THE END. 


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Cranford 

Mary Barton 8vo, Paper, 40 cents ; 

Moorland Cottage 

My Lady Ludlow 

Right at Last, &c 

Sylvia’s Lovers 

Wives and Daughters. Illustrated 

GIBBON’S (C.) A Hard Knot 

A Heart’s Problem 

By Mead and Stream 

For Lack of Gold 

For the King 

Heart’s Delight 

In Honor Bound 

Of High Degree 

Robin Gray 

Queen of the Meadow 


PEIOB 

,32mo, Paper 

20 


50 

12mo, Paper 

20 


50 


50 


50 


60 


50 


15 


35 


25 


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20 

16mo, Paper 

25 


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35 


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35 


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20 

,16mo, Cloth 1 

25 

4to, Paper 

20 

.18mo, Cloth 

75 


20 

.12mo, Cloth 1 

50 


40 


60 

12mo, Paper 

25 


10 


20 


35 


30 


20 


35 


20 


35 


15 


6 


Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 


PRICE 

GIBBON’S (C.) The Braes of Yarrow 4to, Paper $ 20 

The Golden Shaft 4to, Paper 20 

HARDY’S (Thos.) Fellow-Townsmen 32mo, Paper 20 

A Laodicean. Illustrated 4to, Paper 20 

Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid 4to, Paper 10 

HARRISON’S (Mrs.) Golden Rod 32mo, Paper 25 

Helen Troy 16 mo, Cloth 1 00 

HAY’S (M. C.) A Dark Inheritance 32mo, Paper 15 

A Shadow on the Threshold 32mo, Paper 20 

Among the Ruins, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

At the Seaside, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

Back to the Old Home 32mo, Paper 20 

— Bid Me Discourse 4to, Paper 10 

Dorothy’s Venture 4to, Paper 15 

For Her Dear Sake 4to, Paper 15 

Hidden Perils 8vo, Paper 25 

Into the Shade, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

Lady Carmichael’s Will 32mo, Paper 15 

Lester’s Secret.... 4to, Paper 20 

‘"'"Missing 32mo, Paper 20 

My First Offer, and Other Stories 4to, Paper 15 

Nora’s Love Test 8vo, Paper 25 

Old Myddelton’s Money 8vo, Paper 25 

Reaping the Whirlwind 32mo, Paper 20 

The Arundel Motto 8 vo, Paper 25- 

The Sorrow of a Secret 32mo, Paper 15 

The Squire’s Legacy 8vo, Paper 25 

Under Life’s Key, and Other-Stories 4to, Paper 15 

Victor and Vanquished 8 vo, Paper 25 

HOEY’S (Mrs. C.) A Golden Sorrow 8vo, Paper 40 

All or Nothing 4to, Paper 15 

Kate Cronin’s Dowry 32mo, Paper 15 

The Blossoming of an Aloe 8vo, Paper 30 

The Lover’s Creed 4to, Paper 20 

The Question of Cain 4to, Paper 20 

HUGO’S (Victor) Ninety-Three. Ill’d. 12mo, Cloth, $1 50 ; 8 vo, Paper 25 

mu. m *1 _ £ ci _ Tim o i rr\ r> T> r r\ 


JAMES’S (Henry, Jun.) Daisy Miller 32mo, Paper 20 

An International Episode 32mo, Paper 20 

Diary of a Man of Fifty, and A Bundle of Letters 32mo, Paper 25 

The four above-mentioned works in one volume 4to, Paper 25 

Washington Square. Illustrated 16mo, Cloth 1 25 

JOHNSTON’S (R. M.) Dukesborough Tales. Illustrated 4to, Paper 25 

Old Mark Langston. 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

LANG’S (Mrs.) Dissolving Views... 16mo, Cloth, 60 cents ; 16mo, Paper 35 

LAWRENCE’S (G. A.) Anteros 8vo, Paper 40 

Brakespeare 8 vo, Paper 40 

Breaking a Butterfly 8vo, Paper 35 

Guy Livingstone 12mo, Cloth, $1 50 ; 4to, Paper 10 


Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 


7 


LAWRENCE’S (G. A.) Hagarene 8vo, Paper 

Maurice Dering 8vo, Paper 

Sans Merci 8vo, Paper 

Sword and Gown 8vo, Paper 

LEVER’S (Charles) A Day’s Ride 8vo, Papec 

— —Barrington 8vo, Paper 

- — Gerald Fitzgerald 8vo, Paper 

Lord Kilgobbin. Illustrated 8vo, Cloth, $1 00; 8 vo, Paper 

One of Thenv 8vo, Paper 

Roland Cashel. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

j — Sir Brook Fosbrooke 8vo, Paper 

Sir Jasper Carew 8vo, Paper 

That Boy of Norcott’s. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

f — ^The Bramleighs of Bishop’s Folly 8vo, Paper 

— The Daltons 8vo, Paper 

The Fortunes of Glencore 8vo, Paper 

The Martins of Cro’ Martin 8vo, Paper 

Tony Butler 8vo, Paper 

LILLIE’S (Mrs. L. C.) Prudence. Ill’d. 16mo, Cl., 90 cts. ; 16mo, Paper 

MCCARTHY’S (Justin) Comet of a Season 4to, Paper 

Donna Quixote 4to, Paper 

Maid of Athens 4to, Paper 

My Enemy’s Daughter. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

— The Commander’s Statue 32mo, Paper 

— -The Waterdale Neighbors 8vo, Paper 

MACDONALD’S (George) Alec Forbes 8vo, Paper 

Annals of a Quiet Neighborhood 12mo, Cloth 

Donal Grant 4to, Paper 

Guild Court 8vo, Paper 

Warlock o’ Glenwarloek 4to, Paper 

Weighed and Wanting 4to, Paper 

PULOCK’S (Miss) A Brave Lady. Ill’d. 12mo, CL, 90 cents. ; 8vo, Paper 

Agatha’s Husband. Ill’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 

A Legacy 12mo, Cloth 

A Life for a Life 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 

A Noble Life 12mo, Cloth 

Avillion, and Other Tales 8vo, Paper 

Christian’s Mistake 12rao, Cloth 

Hannah. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 

Head of the Family. Ill’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 

His Little Mother 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 4to, Paper 

John Halifax, Gentleman. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 

12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 4to, Paper 

Miss Tommy 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 12mo, Paper 

Mistress and Maid 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 

My Mother and I. Illustrated.. 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8vo, Paper 

Nothing New. 8vo, Paper 

Ogilvies. Illustrated 12ao, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 


PRIOR 

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25 
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75 
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8 


Harper &' Brothers' Popular Novels. 


MULOCK’S (Miss) Olive. Ill’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents ; 8 vo, Paper $ 35 

The Laurel Bush. Ill’d 12mo, Cloth, 90 cents; 8vo, Paper 25 

The Woman’s Kingdom. Ill’d. . . 12mo, Cloth, 90 cts. ; 8vo, Paper 60 

Two Marriages 12mo, Cloth 90 

Unkind Word, and Other Stories 12mo, Cloth 90 

Young Mrs. Jardine 12mo, Cloth, $1 25; 4to, Paper 10 

MURRAY’S (D. C.) A Life’s Atonement 4to, Paper 20 

- -A Model Father 4to, Paper 10 

By the Gate of the Sea 4to, Paper, 15 cents ; 12mo, Paper 15 

'Hearts 4to, Paper 20 

^The Way of the World 4to, Paper 20 

Val Strange 4to, Paper 20 

Adrian Vidal. Illustrated 4to, Paper 25 

NORRIS’S (W. E.) A Man of His Word, &e 4to, Paper 20 

Heaps of Money 8vo, Paper 15 

Mademoiselle de Mersac 4to, Paper 20 

Matrimony 4to, Paper 20 

No New Thing 4to, Paper 25 

That Terrible Man 12mo, Paper 25 

Thirlby Hall. Illustrated 4to, Paper 25 

OLIPH ANT’S (Laurence) Altiora Peto . 4to, Paper, 20 cts. ; 1 6mo, Paper 20 

Piccadilly 1 6mo, Paper 2 5 

OLIPH ANT’S (Mrs.) Agnes 8vo, Paper 50 

A Son of the Soil 8vo, Paper 50 

Athelings 8 vo, Paper 50 

Brownlows 8vo, Paper 60 

CaritA Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Chronicles of Carlingford 8vo, Paper 60 

Days of My Life 12mo, Cloth 1 60 

For Love and Life .....8vo, Paper 50 

Harry Joscelyn 4to, Paper 20 

He That Will Not when He May 4to, Paper 20 

Hester 4to, Paper 20 

Innocent. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

It was a Lover and His Lass 4to, Paper 20 

Lady Jane 4to, Paper 10 

s Lucy Crofton 12mo, Cloth 1 50 

Madam 16mo, Cloth, 75 cents; 4to, Paper 25 

Madonna Mary 8vo, Paper 60 

Miss Marjoribanks 8vo, Paper 50 

Mrs. Arthur 8vo, Paper 40 

Ombra 8vo, Paper 50 

Phoebe, Junior 8vo, Paper 35 

Sir Tom 4to, Paper 20 

Squire Arden 8vo, Paper 50 

The Curate in Charge 8vo, Paper 20 

The Fugitives 4to, Paper 10 

The Greatest Heiress in England 4to, Paper 10 

The Ladies Lindores 16mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4 to, Paper 20 


Harper & Brothers Popular Novels. 


OLIPHANT’S (Mrs.) The Laird of Norlaw 0 T 0 ^oth^l 

The Storv of Valentine and his Brother 8™, raper 

The Wizard’s Son 

Within the Precincts 

Young Musgrave • ’ p £ 

PAYN’S (James) A Beggar on Horseback £*1** 

—A Woman’s Vengeance Paper 

Bred in the Bone "VZ.'.'svo,’ Paper 

-By Proxy ~ 8 vo Paper 

For Cash Only ••••••• g 1 Pa £ er 

Found Dead 4t0 Pap er 

Gwendoline’s Harvest ® y0 ’ 

Halves . . . . 4to, p aper 

Less Black than We’re Painted ; . ; 8vo Pp^ 

Murphy’s Master | 8v0 Pa per 

One of the Family ’ Paper 

The Canon’s wSS^lilustrated 4to, Paper 

SStei i^wS n :::::::::::i6™;ca^;$i - oo;' 

Under One Roof ..8vo’ Paper 

Walter s Word.^ g p aper 

What He Cost Her .V.V.V.V.V.V: 8vo, Paper 

READE’S Novels : household Edition, fil’d. ...12mo, Cloth, per vol. 
A Simpleton and Wandering Heir. 

A Terrible Temptation. 

A Woman-Hater. 

Foul Play. 

Good Stories. 

Griffith Gaunt. 

Hard Cash. 


50 
50 
60 
50 
25 
15 
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35 
15 
20 
35 
30 
40 
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1 00 


It is Never Too Late to Mend. 
Love me Little, Love me Long. 
Peg Woffington, Christie John- 
stone, &c. 

Put Yourself in His Place. 

The Cloister and the Hearth. 
White Lies. 

^Perilous Secret ... 1 2mo, CL, 75 ck ; 4 to, Pap., 20cts.; 

A Hero and a Martyr o’ 


A Hero and a Martyr “”!”!*””!”!3”^8vo^ Paper 

A Terrible Temptation. Illustrated i‘ o 8v0 ’ p a P er 

1 ^SSTm 8 vo, Paper, 30 cents ; 12mo, Paper 

Good ^tories'of Man andOther Animals. 1 ' 'iii=d'.. 4to; Paper 
Griffith Gaunt. Illustrated Bv0 ’ ra P er 


40 

15 

30 

25 

20 

30 

20 

30 


10 Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 


PRICE 

READE’S (Charles) Hard Cash. Illustrated 8vo, Paper $ 85 

It is Never Too Late to Mend 8vo, Paper 35 

Jack of all Trades 16mo, Paper 15 

Love Me Little, Love Me Long 8vo, Paper 30 

Multum in Parvo. Illustrated 4to, Paper 15 

Peg Woffington, &c 8vo, Paper 35 

Put Yourself in His Place. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 35 

The Cloister and the Hearth.. 8vo, Paper 85 

The Coming Man ...32mo, Paper 20 

The Jilt 32mo, Paper 20 

The Picture 16mo, Paper 15 

The Wandering Heir. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 20 

White Lies 8vo, Paper 30 

ROBINSON’S (F. W.) A Bridge of Glass 8vo, Paper 30 

— — < A Fair Maid 4to, Paper 20 

A Girl’s Romance, and Other Stories 8vo, Paper 30 

As Long as She Lived 8 vo, Paper 50 

Carry’s Confession 8vo, Paper 50 

Christie’s Faith. 12mo, Cloth 1 75 

Coward Conscience 4to, Paper 15 

Her Face was Her Fortune 8vo, Paper 40 

Lazarus in London 4to, Paper 20 

Little Kate Kirby. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

Mattie: a Stray 8vo, Paper 40 

No Man’s Friend 8vo, Paper 60 

Othello the Second 32mo, Paper 20 

"'"•Poor Humanity 8vo, Paper 50 

PoorZeph! 32mo, Paper 20 

Romance on Four Wheels 8vo, Paper 15 

Second-Cousin Sarah. Illustrated '. 8 vo, Paper 60 

— * Stern Necessity 8vo, Paper 40 

The Barmaid at Battleton 32mo, Paper 15 

The Black Speck 4to, Paper 10 

The Hands of Justice 4to, Paper 20 

The Man She Cared For 4to, Paper 20 

The Romance of a Back Street 32mo, Paper 15 

True to Herself 8vo, Paper 60 

RUSSELL’S (W. Clark) Auld Lang Syne 4to, Paper 10 

A Sailor’s Sweetheart 4to, Paper 15 

A Sea Queen 16mo, Cloth, $1 00; 4to, Paper 20 

An Ocean Free Lance *. 4to, Paper 20 

Jack’s Courtship 16mo, Cloth, 1 00; 4to, Paper 25 

John Holdsworth, Chief Mate 4to, Paper 20 

"Little Loo 4to, Paper 20 

My Watch Below 4to, Paper 20 

On the Fo’k’sle Head 4to, Paper 15 

Round the Galley Fire 4to, Paper 1 5 

^ finliOAnnr Yiiollt. llllisfroto^ 41 a Panan Ort 


Wreck of the “ Grosvenor ” 8vo, Paper, 30 cents ; 4to, Paper 15 


Harper & Bi-others' Popular Novels. 11 


PRICE 

SCOTT’S Novels. See Waverley Novels. 

SHERWOOD’S (Mrs. John) A Transplanted Rose 12mo, Cloth $1 00 

—TABOR’S (Eliza) Eglantine 8vo, Paper 40 

. — Hope Meredith 8vo, Paper 35 

Jeanie’s Quiet Life 8vo, Paper 30 

Little Miss Primrose 4to, Paper 15 

Meta’s Faith 8vo, Paper 35 

The Blue Ribbon 8vo, Paper 40 

The Last of Her Line :4to, Paper 15 

The Senior Songman 4to, Paper 20 

THACKERAY’S (Miss) Bluebeard’s Keys 8vo, Paper 35 

Da Capo 32mo, Paper 20 

Miscellaneous Works ,8vo, Paper *90 

Miss Angel 8vo, Paper 50 

Miss Williamson’s Divagations 4to, Paper 15 

Old Kensington. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 60 

THACKERAY’S (W. M.) Denis Duval. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 25 

Henry Esmond, and Lovel the Widower. 12 Ill’s 8vo, Paper 60 

Henry Esmond 8vo, Pa., 50 cents ; 4to, Paper 15 

Lovel the Widower 8vo, Paper 20 

Pendennis. 179 Illustrations 8vo, Paper 75 

The Adventures of Philip. 64 Illustrations 8vo, Paper 60 

The Great Hoggarty Diamond 8vo, Paper 20 

The Newcomes. 162 Illustrations 8 vo, Paper 90 

The Virginians. 150 Illustrations 8vo, Paper 90 

Vanity Fair. 32 Illustrations 8vo, Paper 80 

THACKERAY’S Works. Illustrated 12mo, Cloth, per vol. 1 25 

Novels: Vanity Fair. — Pendennis. — The Newcomes. — The Virgin- 
ians. — Philip. — Esmond, and Lovel the Widower. 6 vols. Mis- 
cellaneous: Barry Lyndon, Hoggarty Diamond, &c. — Paris and 
Irish Sketch-Books, &c. — Book of Snobs, Sketches, &c. — Four 
Georges, English Humorists, Roundabout Papers, &c. — Catharine, 

&c. 5 vols. 

TOWNSEND’S (G. A.) The Entailed Hat 16mo, Cloth 1 50 

TROLLOPE’S (Anthony) An Eye for an Eye 4to, Paper 10 

An Old Man’s Love 4to, Paper 15 

Ayala’s Angel 4to, Paper 20 

Cousin Henry 4to, Paper 10 

Doctor Thorne .....12mo, Cloth 1 50 

Doctor Wortle’s School 4to, Paper 15 

Framley Parsonage 4to, Paper 15 

Harry Heathcote of Gangoil. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 20 

He Knew He was Right. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 80 

Is He Popenjoy ? 4to, Paper 20 

John Caldigate 4to, Paper 15 

Kept in the Dark 4to, Paper 15 

Lady Anna 8vo, Paper 30 

..——Marion Fay. Illustrated 4to, Paper 20 

Phineas Redux. Illustrated , 8vo, Paper 75 


12 


Harper & Brothers' Popular Novels. 


PRIOR 

TROLLOPE’S (Anthony) Rachel Ray 8vo, Paper $ 35 

Ralph the Heir. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 75 

Sir Harry Hotspur of Humbleth waite. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 35 

■ -The American Senator 8vo, Paper 50 

The Belton Estate 8vo, Paper 35 

The Bertrams 4to, Paper 15 

The Duke’s Children .....4to, Paper 20 

The Eustace Diamonds. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 80 

The Fixed Period 4to, Paper 15 

The Golden Lion of Granpere. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 40 

The Lady of Launay 32mo, Paper 20 

The Last Chronicle of Barset. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 90 

The Prime Minister 8vo, Paper 60 

The Small House at Allington. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 75 

The Vicar of Bullhampton. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 80 

The Warden, and Barchester Towers 8vo, Paper 60 

The Way We Live Now. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 90 

* ** Thompson Hall. Illustrated 32mo, Paper 20 

Why Frau Frohman Raised her Prices, &c 4to, Paper 10 

(Frances E.) Among Aliens. Illustrated 4to, Paper 15 

" Anne Furness 8vo, Paper 50 

Like Ships Upon the Sea 4to, Paper 20 

~ Mabel’s Progress 8vo, Paper 40 

The Sacristan’s Household. Illustrated 8vo, Paper 50 

Veronica 8vo, Paper 50 

WALLACE’S (Lew) Ben-Hur 16mo, Cloth 1 50 

WAVERLEY NOVELS. 12mo. With 2000 Illustrations. 

Thistle Edition 48 Vols., Green Cloth, per vol. 1 00 

Complete Sets, Half Morocco, Gilt Tops 72 00 

Holyrood Edition 48 Vols., Brown Cloth, per vol. 75 

Complete Sets, Half Morocco, Gilt Tops 72 00 

Popular Edition 24 Vols., Green Cloth, per vol. 1 25 

Complete Sets, Half Morocco 54 00 


WAVERLEY NOVELS. 12mo. With 2000 Illustrations. 

Waverley; Guy Mannering; The Antiquary; Rob Roy; Old 
Mortality ; The Heart of Mid-Lothian ; A Legend of Montrose ; 
The Bride of Lammermoor ; The Black Dwarf ; Ivanhoe ; The 
Monastery ; The Abbot ; Kenilworth ; The Pirate ; The Fortunes 
of Nigel ; Peveril of the Peak ; Quentin Durward ; St. Ronan’s 
Well; Redgauntlet; The Betrothed ; The Talisman; Woodstock; 
Chronicles of the Canongate, The Highland Widow, &c. ; The 
Fair Maid of Perth ; Anne of Geierstein ; Count Robert of Paris ; 
Castle Dangerous ; The Surgeon’s Daughter ; Glossary. 


WOOLSON’S (C. F.) Anne. Illustrated by Reinhart 16mo, Cloth 1 25 

For the Major. Illustrated 16mo, Cloth 1 00 

YATES’S (Edmund) Dr. Wainwright’s Patient 8vo, Paper 30 

Kissing the Rod 8vo, Paper 40 

Land at Last 8 vo, Paper 40 

Wrecked in Port 8 vo, Paper 35 


It surpasses all its predecessors. — N. Y. Tribune. 



A Dictionary of the English Language, Pronouncing, Etymological, 
and Explanatory, Embracing Scientific and Other Terms, Numer- 
ous Familiar Terms, and a Copious Selection of Old English 
Words. By the Rev. James Stormonth. The Pronunciation 
Carefully Revised by the Rev. P. H. Phelp, M.A. pp. 1248. 
4to, Cloth, $6 00 ; Half Roan, $7 00 ; Sheep, $7 50. 

Also in Harper’s Franklin Square Library, in Twenty- 
three Parts. 4to, Paper, 25 cents each Part. Muslin covers for 
binding supplied by the publishers on receipt of 50 cents. 

As regards thoroughness of etymological research and breadth of modern inclusion, 
Stormonth’s new dictionary surpasses all its predecessors. * * * In fact, Stormonth’s 
Dictionary possesses merits so many and conspicuous that it can hardly fail to estab- 
lish itself as a standard and a favorite. — N. T. Tribune. 

This may serve in great measure the purposes of an English cyclopaedia. It gives 
lucid and succinct definitions of the technical terms in science and art, in law and 
medicine. We have the explanation of words and phrases that puzzle most people, 
showing wonderfully comprehensive and out-of-the-way research. We need only add 
that the Dictionary appears in all its departments to have been brought down to meet 
the latest demands of the day, and that it is admirably printed. — Times, London. 

A most valuable addition to the library of the scholar and of the general reader. 
It can have for the present no possible rival. — Boston Post. 

It has the bones and sinews of the grand dictionary of the future. * * * An invalu- 
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A work which is certainly without a rival, all things considered, among the dic- 
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As compared with our standard dictionaries, it is better in type, richer in its vocab- 
ulary, and happier in arrangement. Its system of grouping is admirable. * * * He 
who possesses this dictionary will enjoy and use it, and its bulk is not so great as to 
make use of it a terror. — Christian Advocate, N. Y. 

A well-planned and carefully executed work, which has decided merits of its own, 
and for which there is a place not filled by any of its rivals.— A. Y. Sun. 

A work of sterling value. It has received from all quarters the highest commenda- 
tion. — Lutheran Observer, Philadelphia. 

A trustworthy, truly scholarly dictionary of our English language. — Christian Intel- 
ligencer, N. Y. 

The issue of Stormonth’s great English dictionary is meeting with a hearty wel- 
come everywhere. — Boston Transcript. 

A critical and accurate dictionary, the embodiment of good scholarship and the 
result of modern researches. Compression and clearness are its external evidences, 
and it offers a favorable comparison with the best dictionaries in use, while it holds an 
unrivalled place in bringing forth the result of modern philological criticism. — Boston 
Journal. 

Full, complete, and accurate, including all the latest words, and giving all their 
derivatives and correlatives. The definitions are short, but plain, the method of mak- 
ing pronunciation very simple, and the arrangement such as to give the best results 
in the smallest space. — Philadelphia Inquirer. 


Published by HARPER & BROTHERS, New York. 

j g£g=* Hakper & Brothers will send the above work by mail, postage prepaid , to any 
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HARPER’S BAZAR FOR 1886. 


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